Biden Falsely Claims He Sponsored Endangered Species Act

PPPS (Chicago)—In an Illinois Video Town Hall yesterday, Presidential Candidate Joe Biden claimed to have sponsored the Endangered Species Act early in his senate career, which began in 1973 as the junior Senator from Delaware.

The only successful caller to the town hall, which only lasted 4 ½ minutes due to technical difficulties, posed this two-part question:
"Do you support the Endangered Species Act, and will you prohibit animals from being brought into this country for trophies?"

Former Vice President Biden answered "Yes and yes" to both parts.

He then went on to assert that "One of the things I did early on in my career as a U.S. senator was, I was one of the sponsors of the Endangered Species Act."

The Endangered Species Act originated in the U.S. Senate in June of 1973, was eventually passed by both houses and signed by President Nixon later that year.  The original senate bill (S. 1983) was sponsored by Senator Harrison Williams, Jr. of New Jersey. The bill had eight cosponsors, including the senior senator from Delaware at the time, Republican William Roth, Jr.

Senator Joe Biden was neither a sponsor, nor a cosponsor of the Endangered Species Act. Period.

In fact, a review Senator Biden's legislative record indicates that he was seldom a sponsor or cosponsor on environmental legislation, compared to his other areas of interest.

Of the 1,071 bills he sponsored over his career in the Senate spanning 1973 through 2006, only 10 were related to environmental protection, and none included endangered species in the title.

Of the 3,374 bills Senator Biden cosponsored, only 58 were related to environmental protection, and of those, only one was related to endangered species. That was S. 675, entered in 1987 as "Authorization for Appropriations for the Endangered Species Act of 1973". There were 47 cosponsors on the bill, Senator Joe Biden and the Republican Senator from Delaware, among them.

As a senator for more than three decades, Joe Biden certainly understands the difference between the terms sponsor and a cosponsor on a bill. For him to claim to be a sponsor of Endangered Species Act in 1973, early in his senate career, is false. His listing as a cosponsor on an appropriations bill fourteen years later also fails to meet the "sponsor" claim he made.

Joe Biden makes stuff up. And, as evidenced by the Illinois Town Hall video (and numerous other examples), he and his team were incapable of conducting a simple and coherent video town hall exercise, something many politicians regularly do on Facebook or other venues. This man and his team, SHOULD NOT be elected to the office of president of this great country.

You can watch the video, posted on a Biden campaign Facebook page, check the links we have provided, and make up your own mind.


Editor's Note: As a satire blog, we normally are proud to make up fake news for our readers' entertainment, and unlike most of the mainstream media, we readily admit it. There are instances, however, where the actions of some politicians (Democrats mostly) are so outrageous that literally, we could not make this stuff up. This is one of those instances. With that said, we are obliged to offer up this content warning to indicate that the preceding quotes, video link,  investigative journalism, and fact checking are all real. Don't be fooled. 
THIS IS NOT SATIRE.