NATIONAL

Senators to spar over FWS funding, ESA reform bills. E&E News (sub req’d). The Fish and Wildlife Service budget and a landmark conservation law that the agency is tasked with enforcing will be fiercely debated at a Senate hearing this week. The Environment and Public Works Committee hearing will begin with Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and his fellow Republicans grilling FWS Director Dan Ashe about the agency’s $1.6 billion spending request, which is $135.7 million over fiscal 2015.

U.S. finalizes rule on gauging impacts to imperiled wildlife. E&E News (sub req’d). The Obama administration late last week finalized a rule to help wildlife officials decide how to measure and allow impacts to threatened and endangered species, a contentious move aimed at clarifying a thorny Endangered Species Act mandate. The rule would clarify that the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service do not need to issue an incidental take statement (ITS) for some federal planning decisions that anticipate future harm to protected species, but do not authorize any specific projects that would cause impacts.

IDAHO

Idaho’s Legislature gives dated oil and gas rules a face-lift. E&E News. At least 15 million acres of Idahoan land houses the chicken-sized greater sage grouse, which was listed as a candidate for the Endangered Species Act by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2010. However, wildfires and invasive species like cheatgrass are a bigger threat to the bird in Idaho than the fractured landscape that evolves after energy production, Schultz added. So far, no drilling has occurred on lands where the bird roams, Schultz said.

MONTANA

Solenex requests accelerated hearing in Badger-Two Medicine drilling case. Ravalli Republic. After failing to reach agreement in a face-to-face meeting two weeks ago, attorneys for a Louisiana energy company have asked the court to hasten its review of plans to drill for oil in the Badger-Two Medicine area south of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Blackfeet tribal leaders sent Jewell and President Barack Obama letters this spring pointing out the spiritual significance of the area and their opposition to any industrial development there. They also maintain the lease was granted without proper National Environmental Policy Act or Endangered Species Act review and should be canceled.

NEBRASKA

Nebraska bat designed by feds as “threatened”. Nebraska Radio Network. Federal officials are now designating a type of bat that lives in Nebraska as a threatened species, because a fungal disease is wiping out large populations of the furry, flying creatures. Kristen Lundh, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says the northern long-eared bat will have new protections in Nebraska and 25 other states under the “threatened” designation.

NEVADA

Officials: Drought increases danger of Nevada wildfire. Las Vegas Review-Journal. It is expected to be a long, dry and hot summer in Nevada, bringing with it the danger of wildland fires across much of the state in the midst of a fourth year of extreme drought. Wildland fires threaten not only homes and businesses, but could damage efforts to protect the greater sage grouse habitat found across 17 million acres of the state.

NEW MEXICO

New Mexicans continue their prairie chicken fight. Santa Fe New Mexican, Op-Ed. In what has become a cast of dozens of litigants, New Mexico counties, conservation districts and livestock organizations continue to push for fair treatment from the federal government in relation to lesser prairie chickens and their habitat. In March 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the lesser prairie chicken as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. The officials made the listing as a result of a court order rather than science.

TENNESSEE

Citizen groups sue to protect imperiled fish from strip mining pollution. WATE. Four citizen groups filed suit in the Federal District Court in Knoxville, alleging two federal agencies failed to meet their obligations under the Endangered Species Act to consult with each other to protect the threatened blackside dace when issuing the coal mining permit for the 1,088-acre Sterling and Strays strip mine in Claiborne County. Plaintiffs include Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, the Tennessee Clean Water Network, and Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment.

WYOMING

Sage Grouse Official Disputes Study’s Conclusions On Extinction. Wyoming Public Media. A report commissioned by Pew Charitable Trusts predicts that sage grouse will be extinct in 100 years and could be gone from the Powder River Basin in 30 years, if their decline continues at its current rate. The Garton report, as it’s known, was released last week in the “Environment and Energy Daily,” an online magazine. Wyoming Sage Grouse Coordinator Tom Christiansen says he has concerns with the study–not the method or the analysis, but its conclusion that conservation efforts aren’t working.