Issues
IPAA Launches New ESA Watch Website. At IPAA’s 84th Midyear Meeting in Colorado Springs last week, IPAA rolled out its new website for its year-old ESA campaign, Endangered Species Watch. By visiting the website, member companies, Hill staffers, and reporters can learn about the history of the ESA, access daily news clips and weekly newsletter, and track regulatory and grassroots action around the country. IPAA also unveiled the new “ESA Toolkit” which provides a base education of the ESA and its implications, including a broad history of the ESA, a detailed account of the listing process, definitions of key terms in the law, and hot topics. Please take a look at www.esawatch.org.
In addition to the website launch, the ESA and its impact on all forms of energy development was a main topic at this year’s midyear meeting. Larry Jensen of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck discussed among many things the potential impacts of a proposed rule by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) that would impact how critical habitats are determined. Mr. Jensen also discussed the voluntary efforts underway to protect the sage grouse, as well as the voluntary investments made to protect the Lesser Prairie Chicken prior to the threatened listing decision determined earlier this year.
Administration Finalizes Policy to Altering Implementation of ESA. Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service announced a new policy regarding the interpretation of the phrase “significant portion of its range” in the Endangered Species Act (ESA). According to the Services:
“Specifically, the policy clarifies a species’ ‘range’ as the geographical area within which that species is found at the time of the listing determination. The term ‘significant portion’ is defined to mean a portion of that range whose contribution to the viability of the species is so important that, without the individuals in it, the species as a whole would be in danger of extinction (meriting an endangered status), or likely to become so in the foreseeable future (meriting a threatened status).”
FWS Extended Decision Deadline for Northern Long-eared Bat. This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced it will be extending the decision deadline on whether to list the northern long-eared bat as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The FWS has extended the deadline by six months and will make its final determination by April 2, 2015.
Representatives from Arkansas, who requested the extension in a letter led by Congressman Tom Cotton (AR-4) earlier this month, highlighted the importance of ensuring all parties have adequate time to understand the potential consequences of such a listing decision. From the letter:
“We’re pleased the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listened to our concerns and granted our request for a six-month extension of the comment period,” they wrote. “An endangered species classification of the northern-long eared bat could have a devastating impact on several of Arkansas’s most important industries, and we must be sure to resolve all questions surrounding the designation. In the coming months, we will continue to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor this matter.”
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp echoed this support for the delay, noting that the decision will provide government and “forestry management partners” more time to develop conservation measures. The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) also hosted a Congressional briefing on the northern long-eared bat and the potential impacts of a listing decision with over 60 staffers in attendance earlier this month.
The bat’s habitat range is widespread across North America, including 39 U.S. states and all Canadian provinces from the Atlantic Ocean west to the southern Yukon Territory and eastern British Columbia. In January 2010, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition to list the northern long-eared bat as threatened or endangered; later in October 2013, the FWS published its proposal to list the bat as endangered throughout its range.
IPAA, API, and WEA Support H.R. 4716. The oil and natural gas industry is continuing their support for Rep. Cory Gardner’s (CO-4) H.R. 4716, the Sage Grouse Protection and Conservation Act. This week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) submitted its letter of support to Rep. Gardner; the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and the Western Energy Alliance also submitted letters in May.
As IPAA highlighted in its letter of support this May, “a threatened or endangered species listing for the Sage or Gunnison Sage Grouse under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) would drastically change activities for our member companies on federal and private lands in the affected areas.”
As such, the oil and gas industry and various other stakeholders support this commonsense legislation. As API states: “Your legislation is important because it empowers each of the states affected by a potential ESA listing of the greater sage grouse to pursue a science-based adaptive management approach tailored to local range, habitat and climate characteristics to guide the state’s conservation of the greater sage grouse rather than a one-size-fits-all federal program.”
BLM Director and Wyoming Governor Talk Sage Grouse. This week, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead and Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze met in Cheyenne to announce BLM’s final approval of a comprehensive management plan for the Greater sage grouse on public lands in central Wyoming. The updated and approved Lander Resource Management Plan echoes Wyoming’s existing core area strategy to conserve the grouse, providing land use management directions for over 2.4 million acres of BLM surface land and 2.8 acres of BLM mineral estate. The plan also includes a master leasing plan aimed at coordinating conservation measures with a wide range of stakeholders in the state.
Governor Mead and BLM Director Kornze both expressed their excitement for the new plan as an important step in balancing state and federal interests in sage grouse conservation. From the Governor:
“This is a reasoned plan that recognizes multiple-use for these public lands. The plan strikes a balance between energy production, livestock grazing, recreation and conservation. It incorporates Wyoming’s plan for protecting greater sage-grouse. The BLM has worked closely with Wyoming for the best use of public land. The Lander RMP represents another step forward in a productive relationship between the BLM, the state and the public interest.”
BLM Director Kornze echoed the Governor’s sentiment:
“We appreciate the close cooperation of the State of Wyoming and other partners in developing this balanced plan that provides opportunities for energy and minerals development, as well as protection for wildlife, cultural properties, and special areas.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is expected to make a final listing decision on the Greater sage grouse by September 2015.
Obama Administration Announces New Funding for Bi-State Sage Grouse. The Obama administration has announced new funding to protect the bi-state sage grouse along the California-Nevada state line. The administration announced it would provide $31 million through 2024 to support ranchers and other landowners to improve the grouse’s habitat. The Bureau of Land Management will provide $6.5 million over ten years to finance various improvements for the population, while the Department of Agriculture will provide $25.5 million to purchase conservation easements in target habitat areas.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack applauded what he called a “groundbreaking commitment,” stating “with proactive conservation investments, we’re helping farmers and ranchers who are improving habitat through voluntary efforts to stabilize this population of sage grouse.”
In the News
NOAA to consider taking humpback whales off endangered list. Anchorage Daily News. “We would go back to the regulations to determine what may be necessary or what needs to be changed,” she said. But regulation changes depend on the outcome of the status review, a range of possibilities that includes a possible change to a listing of “threatened” from the current endangered listing, she said. Humpback whales are currently managed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act as well as the Endangered Species Act.
Funding available to improve sage grouse habitat in Idaho. Prairie Star. The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has funding available to help farmers and ranchers protect declining sage-grouse populations and habitat in Idaho. “Sage grouse are found at elevations ranging from 4,000 to over 9,000 feet and depend on sagebrush for cover and food,” said Burwell. Declining sage-grouse habitat and populations across the west generated interest in helping the species so that it will not need protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Let the fracking begin. Reno News & Review. The land included in this project is also priority habitat for greater sage grouse, meaning that the project could endanger a species which is awaiting listing under the Endangered Species Act. This is a concern that CBD has expressed in earlier issues with fracking in Nevada as well because BLM and the state are currently in the process of developing plans to handle greater sage grouse, their habitat and their conservation. Mrowka believes it is “shortsighted” of BLM to approve a fracking project in priority habitat when they haven’t made a decision about their greater sage grouse conservation plans yet.
Fish and Wildlife should rescind prairie chicken designation. Quay County Sun (Op-Ed). The Fish and Wildlife Service seems confounded by the negative response to listing the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species. In designating the lesser prairie chicken as threatened, a step down from endangered but warranting specific protections, it had provided assurances that no additional federal regulations that might have an adverse impact on economic activities would be imposed.
Groups seek Endangered Species Act listing for Southeast Alaska tree. Alaska Dispatch. Yellow cedars, slow-growing trees that are withering and dying in the temperate rainforest of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, should get Endangered Species Act protections, said a petition submitted Tuesday by an three environmental organizations and a tour company operating in Southeast. The petition, submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, seeks to make the yellow cedar the first Alaska tree and the second Alaska plant to gain a listing under the Endangered Species Act. The Aleutian shield fern, a plant found only on Adak Island in the central Aleutians, is the other plant listed under the act, first added as endangered in 1988.
Preserving North Dakota’s sage grouse. Bismarck Tribune. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently under a court order to determine whether to place sage grouse on the endangered species list, and it must decide within the next 18 months.
No time to waste on sage grouse protection. Post Independent (Op-Ed).The greater sage-grouse and the even more-at-risk Gunnison sage-grouse have both experienced drastic population reductions and have lost at least half of their historic range to development in recent years. These two species right now are on their way out. But still, there are people, even leaders in our state like Congressmen Cory Gardner and Scott Tipton, who would further delay federal sage-grouse conservation for at least a decade — essentially writing a death sentence of extinction for one or both of the species.
Feds mull petition to delist humpbacks. Maui News. A petition filed by the state of Alaska to remove some North Pacific humpback whales from protection under the Endangered Species Act merits a closer look, federal officials said Wednesday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the petition to delist the central North Pacific whales presents substantial scientific backing that such action may be warranted. That population, estimated at more than 5,800, feeds in Alaska in the summer and breeds in Hawaii in winter.
California’s Drought. Wall Street Journal. The problem is that federal regulators, prodded by environmental groups, have ruled that pumping at the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta threatens the smelt. Ergo, under the Endangered Species Act, the three-inch fish must be protected at almost any economic cost. After 300 smelt were ensnared in the pumps last winter, regulators ordered that a deluge of melted snowpack—which threatened to flood northern California reservoirs—be discharged into the ocean rather than exported to farmers in the Valley.
