Weekly Newsletter | January 11, 2019
Issues
Government shutdown interrupts changes to sage-grouse conservation plans. Conservation groups are demanding the Interior Department (DOI) give them more time to formally appeal proposed revisions to Obama-era Greater sage-grouse conservation plans, after problems with the agency’s website in the first days of the partial government shutdown restricted access to online documents. A Federal Register notice published last month on EPA’s Register webpage listed the deadline to file protests as Monday, Jan. 7. But a formal notice published several days later on the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Federal Register page listed the deadline to file protests as today, Jan. 9. Press materials on the plan revisions on BLM’s website state that protests must be filed by the close of business on Jan. 8.
Amid the conservation plan confusion, conservationists are also raising concerns that the government shutdown could stymie mandated environmental review of the March oil lease sales. Addressing impending leases and plan revisions, BLM has said the proposed changes to the original plans finalized in September 2015 give the bureau and individual states “flexibility” to allow for increased economic activity in grouse habitat management areas while still protecting the bird.
A Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman declined to comment, citing the government shutdown.
IPAA and fellow trade associations submitted joint comments last week to the Forest Service regarding the agency’s Land Management Plan Amendments (LMPA) for the conservation of the Greater sage-grouse in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah and draft environmental impact statements (DEI).
New Congress begins shift in energy, environmental policy. The 116th Congress has just begun a new session and already, lawmakers are introducing a swath of energy and environment bills as the Democrat-controlled House turnover committees with new leadership. Included in the flurry of bills is a proposal to waive restrictions for certain forest management projects.
California GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa has introduced H.R. 243, the “Combustion Avoidance Along Rural Roads Act,” that would waive restrictions under the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act (ESA) for forest management projects within 300 feet of any road by the Interior or Agriculture departments.
That legislation, aimed at reducing the spread of wildfire, is similar to legislation LaMalfa has introduced previously. Green groups have repudiated the bill, believing the ESA should take precedence and have vowed to fight the bill if it advances. If the bill does advance, however, it will have to pass through committee – namely, the Committee on Natural Resources. Arizona Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, a longtime progressive activist prior to coming to Congress, will lead the committee and has made clear his intention to pushback against ESA limitations.
In the News
Bernhardt plays, for now, to a nearly empty house. E&E News, Sub req’d. David Bernhardt’s inaugural move as acting Interior secretary was essentially a silent one, but he’ll be speaking more if he ever gets his workforce back. Bernhardt arrived at a depopulated Interior Department headquarters this morning to start his first full day as acting secretary, following the departure yesterday of former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. “When I was a Boy Scout, I was taught to leave the campsite better than I found it,” Zinke declared in his final departmentwide email. “I am confident that over the last 2 years, we have done that together for our public lands and the Department of the Interior.” Zinke’s deputy secretary since August 2017, Bernhardt is taking charge amid a partial government shutdown that’s rattling everything from national parks and wildlife refuge operations to his own palace guard. Furloughs were to send home about 76 percent of the roughly 2,800 employees in the Office of the Secretary, according to Interior’s contingency plan. The shutdown has also stymied work on some of the policy developments Bernhardt has been overseeing as the hands-on deputy secretary, such as finalizing controversial revisions to Endangered Species Act regulations.
Battles on public lands, monuments, ANWR sure to resurface. E&E News, Sub req’d. The 115th Congress is a wrap, but many of the previous legislative session’s top natural resources issues — from Land and Water Conservation Fund renewal to the size of national monuments — will spill over into the new one, albeit with a few twists now that Democrats control the House. BHA and the National Wildlife Federation want lawmakers to reintroduce the bipartisan “Recovering America’s Wildlife Act” that would authorize up to $1.3 billion annually for state agencies to support state wildlife action plans and amend the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act. The state wildlife action plans identify species at risk of becoming threatened or endangered and outline how to keep them off the Endangered Species Act list. That legislation had bipartisan support in both the House and Senate in the 115th legislative session. Those who oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — which Congress approved in the 2017 tax law — also haven’t given up that fight.
Waivers silence enviro laws in border wall fight. E&E News, Sub req’d. President Trump could evade environmental laws as well as Congress — at least for a bit — if he invokes emergency powers to build a wall along the nation’s border with Mexico. Experts say Trump appears to have at least some unfettered construction authority, if he chooses to exercise it. But in exempting border wall construction from the dictates of the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the like, Trump would also fan the flames of a broader fight over environmental waivers, stir legal challenges and potentially unsettle even Republican allies. “I suspect that if [Trump] decides to use some emergency authority to get the funding and manpower to build that ‘big, beautiful wall,’ that action would be challenged … on constitutional or appropriations grounds,” said Susan Jane Brown, staff attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. If built, Trump’s wall would leave the kind of lasting mark that usually triggers key environmental statutes.
Alaska calls for less federal control of wildlife management. E&E News, Sub req’d. The Interior Department in September asked states what it could do to “restore trust and be a good neighbor.” Alaska’s acting wildlife commissioner has provided a long list of suggestions. In a 41-page memo, acting Fish and Game Department Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang took aim at the administration of federal laws and regulations that govern endangered species, national wildlife refuges and marine mammals in Alaska. Federal agencies have intruded into Alaska’s authority to manage fish and game and misinterpreted federal law, he said. Vincent-Lang’s suggestions were strongly criticized by a representative of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Rick Steiner said the list could have been compiled by Exxon Mobil Corp., the Resource Development Council for Alaska or Safari Club International, an organization that promotes hunting. Steiner said Alaska’s requested limits in implementing the Endangered Species Act are most worrisome.
