Issues

Trade Associations Active on ESA Issues This Week. On Friday, September 20th, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), American Petroleum Institute (API), Permian Basin Petroleum Association (PBPA), and New Mexico Oil & Gas Association (NMOGA) filed their petition to intervene in the case where the Center for Biological Diversity is challenging the Department of Interior’s decision to not list the dunes sagebrush lizard. Read the full petition on the ESA Watch website HERE.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has also announced it is extending the deadline for a final determination on the listing of sixty six species of reef-building corals under the Endangered Species Act. API, IPAA, and the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) commented on the proposed listings in April 2013. The areas of uncertainty noted by the NMFS closely mirror comments API, IPAA, and NOIA jointly submitted including:

  • Interpretation of the data relating to extinction risk and proposed species’ listing statuses;
  • The sufficiency and quality, or lack thereof, of the species-specific information used for each species’ proposed listing determination;
  • The accuracy of the methods used to analyze the available information to assess extinction risk (including NMFS’s ‘‘Determination Tool’’) and derive listing statuses for each of the proposed species;
  • The ability of corals to adapt or acclimatize to ocean warming and acidification;
  • The reliability, certainty, scale, and variability of future modeling and predictions of climate change;
  • The effect local management efforts have on coral resilience.

NMFS stated the agency, based on comments received during the public comment period, needs an additional six months to collect additional information and reconcile data conflicts. A link to the federal register notice can be found HERE.

ESA and the Keystone XL Debate. This week, the Center for Biological Diversity released a new analysis regarding the Keystone XL pipeline’s impact on endangered species. The analysis claims the State Department’s review of the proposed pipeline route underestimates the project’s impact on endangered species.  The State Department’s draft environmental impact statement, however, found the pipeline – following certain safeguards — would cause “no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed project route.” The ESA Watch team will be keeping an eye on this debate as it moves forward.

LPC Debate Continues to Impact Texas Landowners. An article in the Texas Tribune this week highlighted the Lesser prairie chicken (LPC) debate in Texas. The article, which was also featured in the New York Times, discussed the impact such a listing would have on ranchers in the habitat region, noting a federal listing could mean fines or large penalties for landowners who have birds injured on their property. According to the article:

“’This is very serious, and it very well could put our 100-year operation out of business,’ said Evertt Harrel, whose West Texas family cattle ranch has long been a home to lesser prairie chickens. A chunk of it, like many in Texas, is leased for oil and gas activities.

 

“…’Everybody’s just too busy trying to make a living to survive the drought, pay their taxes and put food on the table,’ said Jeff Haley, who also raises cattle on chicken habitat near the Oklahoma border in the Texas Panhandle. ‘They’re resentful of the fact that outside forces would be trying to tell them what they can and can’t do on their own place.’”

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and others are working to promote Range-wide Plans where oil and natural gas companies would pay landowners a fee to maintain and offset disturbances to the LPC’s habitat while avoiding a federal listing. Other plans promoted by the Environmental Defense Fund and operators in the region would utilize wildlife habitat exchanges to protect the bird.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is set to make a final listing determination for the LPC by March 30, 2014.

In the News

Energy companies seek compromise in prairie chicken listing. KFDA. Five states, including Texas, have submitted the fourth draft of a conservation plan for the lesser prairie chicken. This comes after the bird was proposed to be listed as “threatened” under the endangered species act. If the species is classified as endangered, stricter federal regulations for land use will be put in place.

ESA listing could undercut Washington’s economy. Bonney Lake Courher-Herald (Column by Don Brunell). Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposed to list several subspecies of the Mazama pocket gopher in Washington as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Why should we care? Because this listing will come at a very high price — a price we will all pay.

U.S. Agency Lists Nevada Butterfly as Endangered. Courthouse News. A rare Nevada butterfly has been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to list five others that were proposed for listing at the same time. The Mount Charleston blue butterfly lives only in the high elevations of the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area about 25 miles west of Las Vegas, Nev.

Timber industry suffers as loggers blame federal regs for lost jobs. Fox News. While Rough and Ready sits in the middle of America’s richest timber country, the federal government owns 80 percent of the land. Many in these decimated small towns blame The Endangered Species Act, which paved the way for a flood of lawsuits blocking federal timber sales, because of an endangered species in the region.

Draft Sage Grouse Plan Gets Pushback from Feds. Montana Energy Review. A document that is purportedly a preliminary draft of a Montana sage grouse conservation strategy has received initial pushback from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) as lacking sufficient surface occupancy restrictions and not doing enough to discourage land conversion for agricultural purposes.

New Study Shows Steep Decline of Lesser Prairie Chicken Populations. Center for Biological Diversity (Press Release). Lesser prairie chicken population numbers dropped by more than 50 percent over the past year, according to a study released today. The finding raises questions about the adequacy of voluntary conservation measures proposed today for the rare grouse in a final rangewide conservation plan intended to preclude the need for Endangered Species Act protections.

Sage grouse under Endangered Species Act review. Boulder Weekly. The sage grouse, with pointed back feathers like a crown and yellow eyes, is under review for endangered species status by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Sage grouse, as their name suggests, occupy the sagebrush country of the northwest U.S. and some of southern Canada, an area highly contested among the sage grouse, ranchers and the oil and gas industry.

BLM Wyo. plan won’t prevent sage grouse listing — conservation group. E&E News (sub req’d). The American Bird Conservancy is concerned that BLM’s “preferred alternative” would open up too much known sage grouse habitat to development, resulting in a greater likelihood that the bird will soon be listed under the Endangered Species Act, said Steve Holmer, ABC’s senior policy adviser.

Sagebrush study to improve native grasses, sage grouse habitat. CDA Press. Thinning old sagebrush stands may give sage grouse more high-quality habitat to spread their wings and prosper. University of Idaho Extension faculty members plan to test that idea, and whether younger, sparser sagebrush stands can help restore populations of the iconic Western bird.