Weekly Newsletter |May 24, 2019
Issues
Interior-EPA Appropriation bill passes despite “misleading” sage grouse language. The House Appropriations Committee voted along party lines 30-21 on Wednesday in approving a $37.3 billion fiscal 2020 spending bill for the Interior Department (DOI) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Republicans proposed five amendments to the bill, with one measure getting two Democratic votes; all proposed amendments failed, nonetheless.
Notably, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) offered an amendment that would have eliminated language in the committee report he called “very misleading about what’s going on with sage-grouse.”
The section expresses concern “about the dismantling by the current administration of the unprecedented conservation partnership forged in 2015 by 11 Western states, ranchers and other interested stakeholders to keep the sage-grouse off the endangered species list.”
The language directed DOI and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to include the Fish and Wildlife Service “in any discussions pertaining to BLM leasing in the sagebrush habitat to prevent degradation to the habitat, minimize disturbance, and mitigate impacts.”
Simpson said normally the report language wouldn’t bother him because “he listens to report language about as much as agencies do.” However, the section on sage-grouse was concerning due to its portrayal of the changes to Obama-era greater sage-grouse conservation plans and the cooperation had between Western states and DOI.
The amendment failed 22-30.
Senate NDAA draft leaves out sage-grouse riders. After holding several markups of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) earlier this week, the Senate Armed Services Committee unveiled a draft $750 billion draft on Thursday.
Environmental riders, including perennial efforts to include language that would change sage-grouse protections, often make their way into the must-pass legislation. However, the draft unveiled yesterday includes no such language.
The House Armed Services Committee is set to release its own version of the NDAA in the coming weeks; Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who took the helm of the committee earlier this year, has said he plans to keep “anti-environmental riders” out.
Chairman Smith has scheduled House NDAA markups for early June.
In the News
Greens sue Interior over ‘urgently needed ESA protections.’ E&E News, Sub req’d. Environmental groups today filed a federal lawsuit against the Interior Department in an effort to prompt protection for eight “highly imperiled species” under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service “has found that all of the species warrant protection” under the ESA, but “has refused to afford them the protections the ESA mandates” until it is able to complete work on other “higher priority species,” according to the 15-page complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. But Fish and Wildlife “is not making expeditious progress in listing other species,” the complaint says, because it is “listing fewer species under the Trump administration than the Obama administration was able to accomplish with an equivalent level of resources, and the rate of listing has now plummeted to the lowest level in decades.”
Lawsuit Aims to Force Trump to Protect Endangered Species Nationwide. Center for Biological Diversity. The Center for Biological Diversity and San Francisco Baykeeper sued the Trump administration today for failing to protect eight highly imperiled species across the country under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined the longfin smelt, Hermes copper butterfly, Sierra Nevada red fox, red tree vole, eastern gopher tortoise, Berry Cave salamander, Puerto Rico harlequin butterfly and a large flowering shrub called marrón bacora all warrant endangered species protections. The agency has failed to actually provide such protection. “Delay means death for these creatures,” said Noah Greenwald, the Center’s endangered species director. “The Endangered Species Act is incredibly effective, but the Trump administration is stalling safeguards that could pull these species back from the brink of oblivion. Refusing to protect these highly imperiled animals and plants signals a sickening hostility to America’s natural heritage.”
Scientists, Grijalva sound alarm on ‘extinction crisis’. E&E News, Sub req’d. House Natural Resources Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) introduced legislation yesterday designed to protect the nation’s most threatened wildlife in response to a U.N.-requested biodiversity study that estimates 1 million species are at risk of extinction worldwide. But that study, which blames man-made influences for driving the threat, drew sharp criticism from Republicans and some witnesses at a Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife hearing yesterday. Grijalva filed the bill just before the subcommittee hearing, which was focused entirely on the Global Assessment study. To date, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has only released a summary of the study. Grijalva said the bill is needed to answer the call in the summary for immediate action to protect sensitive species and their habitats
Green groups seek protection for Del. Firefly. E&E News, Sub req’d. Environmental groups are asking federal officials to take emergency action to protect a species of firefly unique to southern Delaware. In an emergency petition filed yesterday with the Department of the Interior, environmentalists claim the Bethany Beach firefly is at immediate risk of extinction because of imminent destruction of a significant portion of its habitat. The filing comes partly in response to a planned residential development that would be accessible by a wooden cul-de-sac that has been built on pilings over one of the freshwater marshes where the firefly lives. Environmentalists say threats to the bug also include sea-level rise, climate change and mosquito-control pesticides. The petition was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Both are based in Portland, Ore.
Bill seeks to enhance healthy migration paths for species. E&E News, Sub req’d. New bicameral legislation would direct more resources toward reversing habitat loss for wildlife in an effort to protect biodiversity and prevent further species extinction. The “Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act of 2019” would establish a National Wildlife Corridor System on federal lands and waters, giving agencies like the Interior Department authority to designate such migration paths. It would also create a grant program to fund conservation and improvement projects on state, tribal and private land to encourage the natural movement of wildlife. A national coordination committee would develop a national plan for wildlife movement and help improve collaboration on conservation among the federal government, states, tribes and private landowners. The legislation would not require states, tribes or private landowners to take any action, but rather would provide incentives to do so through the grant program. The bill also would not affect state or tribal jurisdiction over fish and wildlife management.
Bill passes to recognize pawpaw, endangered hellbender. E&E News, Sub req’d. An oddly named tree and an odd-looking salamander could soon gain fame in Missouri. Lawmakers sent the governor a bill yesterday that would declare the pawpaw tree the “state fruit tree of Missouri” and designate the hellbender salamander as the “official endangered species.” The Missouri Department of Conservation says the hellbender population has declined drastically since the 1970s. The salamanders live under rocks in rivers and streams. The pawpaw tree produces a sweet fruit and grows in shaded valleys across Missouri. The legislation also would declare an official state tartan — a crisscrossed pattern of blue, brown and silver horizontal and vertical lines. Missouri already has more than two dozen state symbols, including a state tree (flowering dogwood), state tree nut (eastern black walnut) and amphibian (American bullfrog).
Greens sue Interior to block pipelines, power lines. E&E News, Sub req’d. A coalition of environmental and public health advocacy groups is suing the Interior Department over its decision to allow pipelines and power lines associated with a proposed Utah oil shale plant to cross federal lands. Enefit American Oil needs the two transmission lines and three underground pipelines for water, natural gas and oil products to operate its long-planned “South Project,” billed as the nation’s first oil shale production plant. The company — the Salt Lake City-based arm of Estonian-owned Eesti Energia AS — plans to build a 50,000-barrel-per-day oil shale production plant on private lands. The power lines and pipelines at issue would cross about 420 acres of BLM lands. But the new lawsuit filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah is as much about the coalition’s opposition to the oil shale production plant as the impacts of the pipelines and power lines to federal lands and waters.
Utah And BLM Sage Grouse Plans ‘Converge On The Science,’ Says Researcher. Utah Public Radio. The State of Utah and the Bureau of Land Management recently revised plans to restore and manage populations of Greater Sage Grouse in the Intermountain West — and researchers say this time, they got it right. “The beautiful thing about these plans is they have converged on science that is conducted in the state,” said Terry Messmer, a professor of wildland resources at Utah State University. “The ideal situation is you do science and then that science helps guide the management and policy, and really that is what happened with the state of Utah plans and the BLM plans.” Messmer said previous plans managed sage grouse habitat using the same standards across the West. But as sage grouse habitat ranges from Northern Montana to Southern Utah and from Oregon to the Dakotas, state and federal agencies realized the necessity of region specific plans.
