Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) announced his retirement on Thursday, the Washington Post's Aaron Blake and Roll Call report.
"Last Friday, I celebrated my 73rd birthday, and while I have the ability and seniority to continue serving Central Washington, it is time for the voters to choose a new person with new energy to represent them in the people’s House," Hastings said in a statement.
Read Hastings' statement on his retirement below:
Two decades ago, the people of Central Washington first voted to place their trust in me to represent them in Congress. In the nine subsequent elections, I’ve been humbled to have been given the privilege to serve as their common sense voice and to work for solutions to improve our local communities and pursue a better, brighter future for our Nation. It is with deep appreciation for that privilege that I announce that this will be my final term in office and that I will not run for reelection in November.
My ambition as a Congressman then and now has been the same: to do the best job I can to serve Central Washington. Last Friday, I celebrated my 73rd birthday and while I have the ability and seniority to continue serving Central Washington, it is time for the voters to choose a new person with new energy to represent them in the people’s House.
But my job is not yet done. Over the coming year I intend to work as hard as ever on behalf of Central Washington. There are a number of community priorities that I am dedicated to seeing achieved in the months ahead.
Without question, my family weighed heavily in my decision. When I was first elected in 1994, my wife Claire and I were proud parents of three young adults who were just starting to make their own way in the world. Today, in addition, Claire and I have two sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law and are the grandparents of eight. As of last year all three of our children’s families now call Washington state their home. Claire has always been my greatest supporter and the hardest part of every week is leaving her Monday morning to catch an airplane to Washington, DC. She and I both look forward with anticipation to the time we will have together and with our family after my term ends in January.
Below, more from the AP:
SEATTLE (AP) — Veteran Republican U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, who represented central Washington for two decades and was a key voice in public lands and energy policy, announced Thursday he'll retire at the end of the year.
As chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Hastings recently took on the Endangered Species Act, calling for an overhaul of the law to curtail environmentalist lawsuits and give more power to states. Hastings and other GOP critics contend the 40-year-old law has been abused by environmental groups seeking to restrict development in the name of species protection.
"The biggest problem is that the Endangered Species Act is not recovering species," Hastings said at a news conference last week where 13 GOP lawmakers proposed "targeted reforms" for the law that protects imperiled plants and animals.
"The way the act was written, there is more of an effort to list (species as endangered or threatened) than to delist" them after declaring they are no longer threatened, Hastings said.
Born in Spokane, the Pasco-based lawmaker was first elected to the U.S. House in 1994 after beating then-Congressman Jay Inslee, the current Washington governor.
Before his career in the nation's capital, Hastings served in the state House from 1979 to 1987.
"Last Friday, I celebrated my 73rd birthday, and while I have the ability and seniority to continue serving Central Washington, it is time for the voters to choose a new person with new energy to represent them in the people's House," Hastings said in a statement.
He added his children, their spouses and his eight grandchildren all now reside in Washington state, and he looks forward to spending more time with them.
Before taking over the Natural Resources panel in 2011, Hastings was best known for efforts to clean up the Hanford nuclear complex in his district.
Hastings, who was close to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., also took on one off the most thankless jobs in politics: investigating the alleged wrongdoing of colleagues as chairman of the House ethics committee.
In 2005, Hastings oversaw a contentious ethics complaint against then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
The Natural Resources Committee has jurisdiction over most of the nation's public lands and plays a pivotal role in shaping federal energy, environment, land use and natural resource policies.
His central Washington district includes national forests, federal wilderness areas, the Grand Coulee Dam, the Yakama Indian Reservation and two massive federal irrigation projects that provide water for much of the state, as well as a vast array of croplands, vineyards and orchards.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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