Cormorant Relief Act of 2025

Sponsored by Rep. Mike Ezell (R-MS) · 3 active : 2 Republicans, 1 Democrat

Latest action: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Read the summary

Where it standsPassed House, now in the Senate

Passed House

House: passedDec 9, 2025
Senate: next
President: not yet

9 senators score as swing votes

Summary

, via Congress.gov

Summary on Congress.gov

Cormorant Relief Act of 2025

This bill requires the Department of the Interior to reissue the depredation order for double-crested cormorants

at aquaculture facilities in certain states. (The previous order was vacated in 2016 by court order.)

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Depredation orders allow for the taking (i.e., capturing, killing, dispersing, or transport of the carcass) of a specified species without a permit, generally to reduce damage caused by the species or to protect interests like health or property. Reissuing this order authorizes landowners, operators, tenants, and employees of entities engaged in aquaculture to take double-crested cormorants that are causing or threatening harm at aquaculture facilities and state and federal fish hatcheries.

Interior must reissue the depredation order with updates, including an expansion of (1) the number of states covered by the order, and (2) the entities to whom the order applies (i.e., private lake and pond managers who are licensed by the state).

Under the bill, Interior must renew the depredation order every five years.

Committees and subjects

Committees

House Committee on Natural Resources · HouseReported by · Markup by · Discharged from · Referred to
Water, Wildlife and Fisheries · HouseHearings by (subcommittee) · Referred to
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works · SenateReferred to

Subjects

Alabama
Aquaculture
Arkansas
Birds
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa

Show all 29 subjects

Senate · 100 House · 433

Model

v3defaultv2

Directional: count only breaks toward the other party Why do scores change?

How the House breaks down

46Swing 70–100
204Middle 30–70
181Entrenched 0–30
2Insufficient data not ranked

Members fall into . 2 representatives don’t have enough data yet and are marked “insufficient data”. Non-voting delegates are not counted. The bill is not before the House right now; these scores show where members would stand.

Key players in the House

Ranked by swing score, 0–100 · swing-v2, directional

: only movement toward the other party counts, so members who sit further from the center than their party no longer score as swing votes.

Bars show each input from 0 to 100: ideology gap, scorecard gap, . is the seat’s partisan lean, and shows how much of the input data a score has.

Similar past votes, House

Earlier behind swing-v3’s input

Not applicable in the House. There is not enough similar voting history (weight 3.0 of 5.0 needed), so this input is left out of the score rather than counted as missing.

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PassedSame policy area×0.5
S.J.Res. 24 · Jul 27, 2023 · Roll call 381On PassageProviding for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relating to “Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Northern Long-Eared Bat”.
PassedSame policy area×0.5

Cosponsors

3 active

Show all 3 cosponsors

Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS-2)
Michael Guest (R-MS-3)
Trent Kelly (R-MS-1)

How the swing score works

Ideology gapHow far a member’s DW-NOMINATE voting score sits from their party’s median in the same chamber.

Scorecard gapHow far their Heritage Action and LCV ratings stray from their party’s average, using the groups’ votes on similar bills where available.

Cross-pressureHow strongly their district or state leans toward the other party, from our own computed partisan lean.

Similar votesHow often they voted against their own party on earlier roll calls about this bill or similar ones.

Committee bonusMembers of the committees handling the bill decide whether it moves, so they get a boost.

Cosponsor checkThe sponsor and active cosponsors have already committed, so they drop toward entrenched.