Weekly Newsletter | January 25, 2019
Issues
House Democrats release new Interior-EPA bill. Late last week, Democrats in the House released a litany of negotiated legislation to support funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Interior Department (DOI).
The released bills included legislation that was negotiated between both congressional chambers last year and were slated to become law prior to the government shutdown.
The measures — under the number H.R. 648 — include the following titles: Agriculture, Rural Development and Food and Drug Administration; Commerce-Justice-Science; Financial Services and General Government; Interior, Environment and Related Agencies; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
In a nod to the recent Endangered Species Act reform attempts, a rider on the bill would prohibit regulation of ammunition or fish-tackle lead content and prevent a listing of the Greater sage-grouse.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he won’t take up any House bills unless the president agrees.
ESA comments pile up as DOI face legal challenges. Group WildEarth Guardians filed two lawsuits against the Department of Interior bureaus over a failure to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests.
The lawsuits come just days after the Center for Biological Diversity filed a notice of intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect nine species under the Endangered Species Act, including the San Francisco Bay-Delta population of longfin smelt and the Sierra Nevada red fox.
More than 200,000 public comments await officials who will eventually return to finish work on Endangered Species Act (ESA) revisions.
In the News
Administration delaying Endangered Species Act and protections on Florida’s gopher tortoise, non-profit says. News-Press. An environmental group says the federal government is not doing enough to protect endangered species across the country, including Florida’s gopher tortoise. The Center for Biological Diversity sent a notice to file suit earlier this week against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying the agency is dragging its feet on animal issues. “The Trump administration is delaying badly needed protections for threatened and endangered species, and it’s putting them at serious risk of extinction,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species specialist for the Portland, Oregon, nonprofit. The gopher tortoise is one of the nine species highlighted in the notice to file. Protected under the Endangered Species Act in parts of its range, tortoises in Florida are not yet federally listed. “The gopher tortoise is a keystone species, and it creates burrows that are used by hundreds of species,” Greenwald said. “So it’s really important that we protect them.”
Greens to Bernhardt: Stop leasing during shutdown. E&E News, Sub req’d. A coalition of more than 30 conservation groups pressed acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to order his agency to “immediately cease work on any and all oil and gas permitting and planning activities.” In a two-page letter saying the ongoing government shutdown has limited “meaningful public participation” in leasing and permitting processes, the groups ask that the Bureau of Land Management postpone all upcoming lease sales “until such time as BLM is able to conduct legally-compliant environmental reviews and comment and protest periods.” The Interior Department emailed a brief statement today to E&E News indicating it does not plan to alter current operations as outlined in the agency’s government shutdown contingency plan. Due to the “current lapse in appropriations” at Interior and its bureaus, the groups say, BLM “lacks the necessary funds and staff to fully comply with applicable legal requirements,” such as “mandatory environmental reviews and 30-day public comment and protest periods.” They also ask Bernhardt to update stakeholders on the status of upcoming oil and gas lease sales in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Utah.
County gets $1.7M to help sage grouse. Baker City Herald. The campaign to aid Baker County’s struggling sage grouse population has received a nearly $2 million boost. And that might just be the start of a multimillion-dollar effort to not only protect the chicken-size bird but also to improve the condition of rangeland, much of it privately owned, across the county. The $1.7 million award from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, approved last week, is the first installment in a planned $6.2 million from the Board, which receives its money from the Oregon Lottery, over the next six years. Local officials also hope to use the state money to leverage federal grants and other sources that could make available several million dollars more to combat invasive weeds, deal with predators and do other work to aid sage grouse recovery, said Mark Bennett, a Baker County commissioner and a member of the governor’s sage grouse council. “It’s really exciting,” said Bennett, who also owns a ranch in the southern part of the county that harbors sage grouse.
