Issues

Federal Agencies Propose Changes to ESA Listing Process. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) implementation process this week, including increasing regulatory predictability and stakeholder engagement and improving science and transparency. According to the agencies, the proposed changes would increase states’ roles in the petition process, update guidance to incentivize voluntary conservation efforts, and launch a new initiative focusing resources on eight of the country’s most vulnerable marine species.  According to the announcement, the proposed changes would:

  • Require petitioners to gather and include information from relevant state wildlife agencies prior to submitting a petition to the Services,
  • Limit petitions to address one species,
  • Require petitions to include all relevant, reasonably available information,
  • Provide a definition of “substantial scientific or commercial information” necessary to support a finding that the petitioned action “may be warranted,”
  • Require a submission of “supplemental information” after the petition has been filed to be treated as a time new petition.

IPAA reacted to the announcement in E&E News (sub req’d), stating “over the years, we have been pleased to see the growing number of voices — and finally even the Obama Administration’s own — joining in the chorus and signifying changes are needed to once again re-focus on the original purpose of the law: true species recovery.” The House Natural Resources Committee also said that while the committee welcomes the news, “actions speak loader than words. Increasingly under this administration, ESA designations have been driven not by sound science and citizen input but litigation from national special interest environmental groups.” The proposed rule is expected to be published in the Federal Register next week, followed by a 60 day comment period.

IPAA Signs Letter Supporting ESA Reform Legislation. The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) signed a joint letter this week with other industry associations, including the Western Energy Alliance and the American Petroleum Institute, supporting Texas Sen. John Cornyn’s proposed legislation to amend the Endangered Species Act (ESA). From the joint letter:

“Your legislation would improve the legal framework of the ESA by increasing transparency and accountability during settlement negotiations in lawsuits that challenge the Services’ failure to meet deadlines “Specifically, your legislation would allow impacted parties the ability to intervene in certain lawsuits, where litigation is initiated based on a failure to perform a non-discretionary action, such as a failure to meet a deadline in the listing process.”

According to Sen. Cornyn, bill S. 293 would increase transparency and accountability during litigation against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, giving “states and counties facing regulation a seat at the table with the FWS and special interest groups in ESA settlement negotiations.” 

House Holds Natural Resources Committee Hearing on Greater Sage-Grouse. This week, the House Committee on Natural Resources held an oversight hearing on “Empowering State Management of Greater Sage Grouse.” Witnesses included Director of Utah Lands Policy Coordinating office Kathleen Clarke, Idaho Office of Species Conservation administrator Dustin Miller, Senior Policy Advisor to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper John Swartout, and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation partnership senior scientist Dr. Ed Arnett.

“We need to examine the states’ underutilized authority to manage species,” Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah said during the hearing. “States are the laboratory of innovation—something the federal government with its efforts simply cannot match.” Hearing witnesses also spoke to the key role of states in conserving the sage grouse, including Colorado’s John Swartout who emphasized that Colorado and Fish and Wildlife are “very close to reaching an agreement that will allow us to get to a not-warranted decision.”

Dustin Miller also spoke to the conservation efforts underway in Idaho, yet noted “top-down direction from the Washington BLM Office in January of this year has presented us with some unique challenges” that could undermine
“long-term and meaningful sage-grouse conservation.” Utah’s Kathleen Clarke reiterated this concern, stating “there’s a dichotomy developing between the state’s collaborative approach and federal unilateralism.”

Interior Releases Rangeland Fire Strategy to Protect Sage-Grouse Habitat. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell released the final greater sage-grouse habitat protection and restoration report, “An Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy,” laying out Interior’s plan to address the threat of wildfires to sagebrush in the Great Basin region, which includes several states in the bird’s 11-state range.

“We now have a fully integrated strategy among federal, state, tribal and community partners that provides a set of actions to take now and in the future to fight rangeland fires across the West,” Jewell said. “This roadmap takes a comprehensive and scientific approach to protect against some of the most intense wildfires that are damaging the American West’s productive rangelands and sagebrush landscapes.”

According to the Department of Interior, management projects include invasive weed treatments, juniper encroachment projects, fuel breaks, sagebrush replanting, seed collection and post-fire rehabilitation efforts. The report was mandated by a Secretarial Order issued by Jewell earlier this year calling for “enhanced policies and strategies for preventing and suppressing rangeland fire and for restoring sagebrush landscapes impacted by fire across the West.”

In the News

Puffy, Feathered Sticking Point of a $612 Billion House Bill. New York Times. The oil and gas industry — led by such groups as the Western Energy Alliance, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance — has mobilized to try to prevent the Department of the Interior from barring large stretches of land as potential drilling sites over concern that drilling and fracking operations could harm the sage grouse.

House Backs Voluntary Plan for Lesser Prairie Chicken. National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The House of Representatives pushed back on the Endangered Species Act listing of the lesser prairie chicken and voted May 15 to sustain voluntary conservation efforts that electric cooperatives helped to develop in the bird’s five-state range. “This action by House members is a boost to all the electric co-ops that have worked hard to conserve the lesser prairie chicken in a way that also allows them to serve their members,” said NRECA CEO Jo Ann Emerson. “We thank our House leaders for recognizing our efforts that we hope will serve as a model in mitigating both impacts to the species and costs to members,” she said.

Feds seek heft in Hickenlooper order for state-led rescue of grouse. Denver Post. Federal authorities deciding whether to list the greater sage grouse as an endangered species on Thursday called Colorado’s small grouse population crucial and are pressing Gov. John Hickenlooper to toughen his order for state-led protection. Hickenlooper’s order must be more specific, losing vague phrasing such as “where practicable,” commit to change state rules for the oil and gas industry where necessary, and require drillers to offset harm to grouse, according to a May 14 letter sent to Hickenlooper from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional director Noreen Walsh.

An unprecedented, collaborative effort. The Hill, Op-Ed. Yesterday morning, the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing to review efforts to conserve the greater sage-grouse – a ground-dwelling bird whose habitat has shrunk by half over the past decades.  We’d like to share our perspective about what’s really at stake when we talk about the bird. There are challenges in the iconic and unbroken sagebrush landscapes of the American West.  Increasingly intense fires, invasive species and development are fragmenting rangeland that ranchers and farmers have relied upon for generations.

Feds, states on last leg of massive sage grouse conservation planning. Idaho Statesman. Once, as many as 16 million sage grouse made their home in the same lands as the roaming herds of buffalo, elk, mule deer and antelope. Today scientists fear the number has dropped to below 200,000. A study just released by University of Idaho scientist Edward Garton shows that the number of breeding males counted at grouse-mating sites fell by 56 percent from 2007 to 2013, from 109,990 to 48,641. That prompted retired Idaho Department of Fish and Game sage grouse biologist Jack Connelly and 10 other scientists to write a stern letter to federal officials earlier this year about the sage grouse plans now being developed.

House GOP bill calls for more sharing of listing data. E&E News (sub req’d). House Republicans last week reintroduced a measure that would require the federal government to provide states with the data used to determine whether imperiled species should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. The move, led by Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), was partially undercut by an Obama administration announcement yesterday that it intends to strengthen procedures for state involvement in the process of adding rare plants and animals to the endangered or threatened species lists and publicly disclosing the data used to do so.

Colorado takes steps to protect greater sage grouse. Associated Press. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Friday ordered state agencies to take steps to protect the shrinking population of greater sage grouse in hopes of avoiding a listing under the federal Endangered Species Act, which would trigger tougher conservation rules. Hickenlooper directed the state to set up a “habitat exchange” for buying and selling conservation credits. It would allow oil companies and others to offset damage to sage grouse habitat by financing improvements elsewhere.

Battle to preserve bats in the Black Hills continues. Rapid City Journal. As a disease that has ravaged the population of the northern long-eared bat continues to spread throughout most of its habitat, scientists are looking at the Black Hills as the last bastion of hope for the species’ continued survival. “In my view, the Black Hills could serve a very important function as a refugee or sanctuary for the species, at least for the next few years, and hopefully in that time a treatment will be found,” said Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity.

FWS moves to delist ‘Teddy bears’. E&E News (sub req’d). The Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed removing from the list of threatened species a type of black bear that is famous for being spared by avid hunter and former President Teddy Roosevelt. The move to delist the Louisiana black bear, one of 16 subspecies of American black bears, was trumpeted by the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who oversees FWS, and environmentalists as a prime example of how public-private partnerships can help to recover species protected by the Endangered Species Act.