ESA Working Group Launched and US Economy Strong Despite Worries

**Washington Representative Dan Newhouse, the Congressional Western Caucus, and the House Committee on Natural Resources have launched the Endangered Species Act Working Group.

The new group will look at how the Endangered Species Act is being implemented, the practical impacts, how litigation is driving ESA decisions, and how success is currently defined.

The group intends to publish a series of policy reform recommendations to the benefit of Americans and species conservation.

**The EPA has denied 26 Small Refinery Exemption petitions for the Renewable Fuel Standard compliance years 2016-18 and 2021-23.

This demonstrates the agency’s continued commitment to ending the backlog of pending exemptions.

The American Soybean Association welcomed the continued transparent and fair assessment of exemptions through more stringent hardship and economic impact requirements.

EPA has recently worked to develop new parameters for petition approvals that have proven effective at strengthening the RFS.

**The U.S. economy continues to defy gravity and remains strong despite lingering inflationary pressures, quantitative easing and contracting of the money supply, higher lending rates and other headwinds.

But looming risks to the economy are mounting.

CoBank's Knowledge Exchange says depleted consumer savings, tighter commercial lending standards and an inverted yield curve are likely to result in a mild recession later this year.