Issues
FWS prepares to publish final Mitigation Policy. This morning, the Fish and Wildlife Service released its pre-publication notice for its Final Mitigation Policy, a policy framework for applying a landscape-scale approach to achieve “a net gain in conservation outcomes, or at a minimum, no net loss of resources and their values, services, and functions resulting from proposed actions.” The official document is set to be featured in the Federal Register on November 21.
In March 2016, the Service issued proposed revisions to its previous 1981 policy. In May, IPAA submitted comments on the draft, requesting the service withdraw the policy unless re-proposed with significant changes.
According to today’s notice, “The primary intent of the Policy is to apply mitigation in a strategic manner that ensures an effective linkage with conservation strategies at appropriate landscape scales.” The policy does include a series of changes from the previous draft and IPAA’s ESA Watch team is reviewing the document to determine how this policy reflects its previous comments to the Service and how it impacts its members.
Soil bacteria experiments in Idaho could help Greater sage-grouse. In southwest Idaho, researchers are experimenting with different soil bacteria to stop the cheatgrass invasion that is eliminating the greater sage-grouse’s habitat. Cheatgrass is an invasive species that robs other plants of water in the spring and dries out into highly flammable tinder in the summer. The cheatgrass is fueling an increasing number of wildfires that burn vast swaths of the sage-grouse’s habitat, prompting the Interior Department to implement a new Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy last year.
Researchers like Ann Kennedy, a soil microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, have gone through 25,000 strains of naturally occurring soil bacteria to find which ones can best stop cheatgrass root growth without causing adverse consequences in the process. Matt Germino, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, noted “We hope that we can identify the effectiveness of the bacteria on annual grasses and to identify non-target risk effects.”
The experiments are a part of a larger guide released last month by the Department of the Interior to protect the greater sage-grouse and combat the destructive wildfires in the Great Basin. The plan identifies cheatgrass as one of the biggest challenges to conservation efforts, but researchers hope a successful combination of soil bacteria and herbicides could be the solution.
Legal battle over hydraulic fracturing and endangered species in the Pacific continues. The California-based Environmental Defense Center (EDC) and others have again sued the Obama administration this week, challenging federal approval of hydraulic fracturing off the West Coast. The Center for Biological Diversity and Wishtoyo Foundation filed a separate but similar lawsuit on Tuesday.
A press release from EDC and the Santa Barbara Channelkeeper alleges the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement “violated the federal Endangered Species Act because they failed to consult with the expert wildlife agencies regarding potential impacts from well stimulation techniques to at least 25 threatened and endangered species.” These listed species found in the Santa Barbara Channel include whales, sea otters, fur seals and sea turtles.
The lawsuit is a part of a larger two-year legal battle over hydraulic fracturing in the Pacific Ocean. The first lawsuit was originally settled when Interior agreed to perform a new environmental assessment on the effects of offshore hydraulic fracturing from oil platforms. The Center for Biological Diversity later rejected the results of the assessment—which ultimately found no significant impacts to the environment—claiming the Interior’s conclusion did not align with data in its study.
In the News
McCain hopes defense bill wrapped up before Thanksgiving recess. Washington Examiner. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Wednesday that he hopes to finish the fiscal 2017 defense policy bill before Congress leaves Washington for a Thanksgiving break. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the conference committee for the National Defense Authorization Act met on Tuesday. “We’ve got it about wrapped up,” he told reporters at the Capitol. Some of the major issues that negotiators have had to work through include whether the sage grouse will be designated as an endangered species, which could affect training on Western military bases, as well as an amendment to the bill that Democrats say allows taxpayer-funded hiring discrimination based on religious beliefs.
Rescinding Obama regs? Not so fast, legal scholars say. EE News (sub. req’d). President-elect Donald Trump’s vows to single-handedly gut Obama administration environmental regulations will be more difficult than he has portrayed, legal experts say. And any effort by Trump’s U.S. EPA to rescind or revoke major scientifically based rules — like the air standard for ozone pollution — would be met with a barrage of lawsuits. “What tends to get administrations in trouble is when they try to take shortcuts,” Adler said, referencing the Bush mercury rule reversal. “That’s what leads to situations where courts say you can’t do that.” All of those precedents suggest that any effort by Trump’s EPA to undo Obama policies on everything from air rules to endangered species listings to grazing regulations would be complicated.
Rocky Mountain Power donation helps sage grouse habitat. Preston Citizen. Since 2010, a group of partners have dedicated time, resources, and dollars to enhancing habitat for sage grouse populations throughout the Intermountain West. Rocky Mountain Power is a partner in this Sage Grouse Initiative and again this spring donated $10,000 to help conserve Greater Sage Grouse habitat. This year’s donation, along with that of sister company Pacific Power, brings to a total of $80,000 the company has contributed and combined with other funds from the Natural Resources Conservation Service and private landowners.
States’ rights bills get hearing. E&E News (sub req’d). The House Natural Resources Committee yesterday continued its push to give states as much control over federal fossil fuel management as possible. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources debated two bills — one clearing the path for state agencies to take over oil and gas leasing and regulation, and another to transfer about 7.2 million acres of federal land to the state of Nevada. Tennessee Republican Rep. Diane Black’s H.R. 866, would exempt state regulators from fundamental federal environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. “The resurgence in oil and natural gas development underway in this country is an opportunity for us to achieve true American energy security,” she said of her “Federal Land Freedom Act.”
Is the Endangered Species List missing hundreds of species of birds? Smithsonian. When researchers talk about endangered species, they are usually referring to plants and animals listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the international body that keeps track of imperiled species around the globe. When research and science determines that a species is in trouble, the IUCN puts it on their Red List of Threatened Species, listing them as species of least concern, near vulnerable, vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. But Aviva Rutkin at New Scientist reports that a new study suggests the system the IUCN uses to classify endangered species is flawed, and based on the abundance of freely available geospatial data, hundreds of species should have their threat classification upgraded.
