The U.S. House on Tuesday voted along party lines on a resolution that will start the process for approval of legislation to delist gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act.

The resolution sets up the rules for debate for six bills, including H.R. 845, which requires the Interior secretary “to reissue regulations removing the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened wildlife under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.”

The bill, known as the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, is authored by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Wellington. It drew 37 co-sponsors, including the other three Republican members of Colorado’s U.S. House delegation.

All four voted in favor of moving the bill to debate. The vote was 215 Republicans in favor, 207 Democrats opposed. Colorado’s four Democratic House members all voted against the measure.

Should the bill be signed into law, any effort to challenge the delisting in court would be blocked, according to Defenders of Wildlife.

“Reissuance of the final rule … shall not be subject to judicial review,” the bill says.

Under H.R. 845, the Interior secretary would have no more than 60 days from the enactment of the law to reissue the rule removing the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened Wildlife.”

That rule, published in November 2020. went into effect on Jan. 4, 2021.

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said it is time to remove gray wolf “entities” in the Lower 48 states and Mexico that were on the list of endangered and threatened wildlife.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife said it is taking the action because “the best available scientific and commercial data available establish that the gray wolf entities in the lower 48 United States do not meet the definitions of a threatened species or an endangered species under the Act.”

The Biden administration eventually agreed with the Trump rule, but a California judge, ruling on a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity, restored the ESA protections in 2022. That ruling, however, did not apply to wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and adjacent states, such as in eastern Oregon, eastern Washington and a small portion of northwest Utah, where wolves are not considered endangered and are under state jurisdictions.

Those are the only sites where Colorado is allowed to obtain wolves, according to an Oct. 10 letter from the head of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which told Colorado Parks and Wildlife it could no longer bring in wolves from British Columbia.

The 2020 rule left in an exception for the Mexican wolf, which is found in New Mexico and Arizona and is under in its own recovery program.

Colorado’s Southern Ute tribe has advocated against gray wolves being released near the reservation, in part because of worries about maintaining protections for the Mexican wolf.

That became an issue recently when a yearling wolf from the Copper Creek pack crossed into New Mexico.

The wolf was captured by New Mexico’s Department of Game and Fish and returned to Colorado, where Colorado Parks and Wildlife released it in Grand County on Dec. 11.

The capture was under a memorandum of understanding between Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah regarding Colorado’s gray wolves.

A statement from Colorado Parks and Wildlife said the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish led the operation in order to protect the integrity of the Mexican wolf recovery program.