Issues
Litigation surrounding greater sage-grouse land use plans. Legal challenges continue to surround the Administration’s federal land use plans for the greater sage-grouse. The amended land use plan, announced in September to support conservation of the grouse, is meant to preserve sagebrush habitat critical to the species but is under fire for its restrictive limits on mining, energy development, and grazing on public lands.
In Nevada this week, Attorney General Adam Laxalt added the state onto a lawsuit challenging federal land use plans first introduced by Elko and Eureka counties and two exploration companies in the state. The lawsuit was brought forward over concerns the plans will restrict development and activities on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service in the state. The Las Vegas Review Journal notes that seven other counties, including White Pine, Lander, Lincoln, Humboldt, Washoe, Churchill and Pershing, have also joined. Still, disagreement remains among Nevada leadership. While Attorney General Laxalt stated “this suit is necessary to fully protect the interest of the state,” Governor Sandoval’s office criticized the move, noting “prematurely embroiling the state in costly litigation at this juncture threatens to compromise future collaborative efforts.”
Idaho Governor Butch Otter and the state’s legislature also issued a lawsuit in September, stating that “sometimes the cure is worse than the disease” and that the “decision effectively undermined years of open and partnership-driven work by local and State leaders and other stakeholders.” The Wyoming Stock Growers Association also filed a legal challenge this week, noting “the arbitrary nature of the grazing prescriptions in these plan amendments and the uncertainty that will accompany their implementation will influence ranchers’ management decisions in ways that can prove detrimental to both livestock and sage grouse.”
Obama side-stepping Congress to adjust ESA. As E&E News reported this week, the Obama Administration is forging ahead to reshape the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to address Congressional and legal concerns around the act. The administration says their reforms will make the Act more flexible and legally defensible, while allowing the Fish and Wildlife Service to focus on species that warrant attention.
The reform effort is looking at various aspects of the Act, including critical habitat designation, habitat modification, and voluntary conservation. For instance, in exchange for private landowners committing to voluntary conservation measures, the administration is proposing to exclude private land from critical habitat designations and has increased its issuance of 4(d) rules allowing greater incidental take. However, as IPAA has highlighted in previous comments, there is concern that the administration would adopt a de facto moratorium on considering federal lands for exclusion from critical habitat designation. The administration also hopes to redefine “adverse modification” with regard to critical habitat. As IPAA noted in October 2014, the proposed changes “would vastly expand their authority to designate unoccupied areas.”
Congressional efforts to reform the Act are also underway. As Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee Rob Bishop (R-Utah) stated this Spring, “our regulatory agencies are not zeroing in on how you actually rehabilitate a species, as opposed to how you control the land surrounding it.” Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) also stated at a May ESA hearing, “the Endangered Species Act has gone from a well-intentioned piece of legislation in the 1970s to one that is dictated by environmental activist groups taking advantage of the adversarial system.”
Bumble bee petition submitted to Fish and Wildlife. This Fall, Defenders of Wildlife sent a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the western bumble bee under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), citing concerns over the impacts of disease on the bee and reduced population levels at historic sites. According to the petition, the bee’s historic range includes northern California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, western Nebraska, western North Dakota, western South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, northern Arizona, and New Mexico. Fish and Wildlife will now decide whether to proceed with a 90-day determination period to consider if the listing might be warranted.
In September, Fish and Wildlife Service issued a 90-day finding on the rusty-patched bumble bee following a January 2013 petition, filed by the Xerces Society and partners, to list the bee as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The bee also has an extensive range across 25 states from the East Coast to North Dakota. Fish and Wildlife stated it decided to move forward with the 90-day finding based on impacts to habitat/range, disease and predation, and other natural or manmade factors.
In the News
Butterflies benefit from drought-induced milkweed boom. E&E News (sub req’d). Record drought is killing lawns across California but helping monarch butterflies as populations of native milkweed flutter back to life. Nurseries are stocking milkweed, a plant native to California’s dry regions and the sole nesting site for female monarchs. Homeowners are planting milkweed to save water — and the butterflies, by extension. More milkweed means less work for the Fish and Wildlife Service, which is investing $1.2 million in milkweed seeds and habitat restoration. Monarch populations have fallen from 1 billion to fewer than 60 million after decades of development and pesticide use.
Prairie chicken ruling tests strength of voluntary conservation. E&E News (sub req’d). If oil and gas, pipeline, wind, and transmission companies continue shelling out millions of dollars to offset harm to the chicken — though they are under no legal obligation to do so — it would prove, to many stakeholders, the merits of voluntary conservation plans that have been a key plank in the Obama administration’s wildlife policy. But reneging on commitments made while the chicken was listed or on the road to a listing would embolden environmentalists who say locally led, voluntary conservation plans only work when the regulatory hammer of ESA remains on the table.
Jeb Bush: Move the Interior Department out West. CNN. As part of his pitch to create a “new relationship with the West,” Jeb Bush said Wednesday his “first step” would be to move the Interior Department’s headquarters away from the nation’s capital. He also called for less federal involvement in public land issues. The gap between bureaucrats and people on the ground, he said, would shrink if the Interior Department relocated somewhere out West, like Denver, Salt Lake City or Reno. “Ninety percent plus of their activities are out here,” Bush said. “But the folks that actually do the work, that impede the partnerships from being created, all live in Maryland, Virginia and Washington. I think they ought to be living out amongst us.”
County calls for de-listing action. Cody Enterprise. In hopes of jump-starting the stalled U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service process to decide the future of Yellowstone grizzly bears, the Park County Commission on Tuesday passed a resolution urging federal delisting of the animal. Considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, years of litigation and debate have left the situation in limbo awaiting action from Fish and Wildlife. The recent sighting of bear footprints in Cody prompted the commissioners to approve the resolution. “It’s just a matter of time before someone gets whacked,” said commissioner Lee Livingston, an outfitter with extensive backcountry experience. “They’re starting to roll in. We need to get rolling on a management plan.”
Dems urge NOAA to protect dusky sharks. E&E News (sub req’d). Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Maria Cantwell of Washington and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island recently sent a letter to NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan admonishing the agency’s National Marine Fisheries Service for not revising regulations to address dusky shark bycatch. “We urge NMFS to quickly take the steps necessary to halt and reverse the species’ disastrous decline,” they wrote. NMFS decided in 2014 that the species did not merit protection under the Endangered Species Act. But it has been working on a plan to rebuild the population, which is overfished.
Updated Idaho Power Line Would Go Through Sage Grouse Habitat. Boise State Public Radio. Idaho Power is one step closer to replacing an aging transmission line that runs from Hagerman to Hailey. Now, the Bureau of Land Management will review it – and will pay special attention to the greater sage grouse in the area. She says the company has been working with the BLM for the last few years to make sure the line is built with the bird in mind. Baczkowski says even though the federal agency has new land use restrictions, the rules aren’t burdensome for Idaho Power.
Protecting the raven has goosed the grouse. Jackson Hole News & Guide (Column). Research conducted by Idaho State University, the Nevada Department of Wildlife and the USGS has proven that predators are the No. 1 limiting factor for sage grouse numbers. I suggest we quit “grousing” about the problem and start by doing something that would have real results. We must reduce the numbers of predators, starting with ravens. Habitat protection and improvement will not help grouse eggs and chicks that are being destroyed by ravens and other predators.
Think tank floats ‘at-risk’ classification to stem ‘wildlife crisis.’ E&E News (sub req’d). Hundreds of species of plants and animals nationwide are on a steady decline that could place them at danger of extinction, according to a new study by a liberal think tank that suggests federal regulators can’t depend solely on the Endangered Species Act to address what it calls a growing “wildlife crisis in the United States.” The study of wildlife population trends conducted by the Center for American Progress found that species already protected by the Endangered Species Act are faring better than other sensitive but nonprotected species, and in many cases have population declines that have “halted or reversed,” including the California condor and the black-footed ferret.
