Weekly Newsletter | February 15, 2019
Issues
Senate approves public lands bill that protects endangered species. Earlier this week, the Senate passed a comprehensive conservation bill to protect millions of acres of land and miles of wild rivers across the country. The 662-page measure includes a provision establishing the “Theodore Roosevelt Genius Prize for protection of endangered species. One or more of the prizes are to be presented annually “for a technological advancement” that protects endangered species.
On a more regionally focused endangered species issue, the bill reauthorizes the Upper Colorado and San Juan River fish recovery program. “The Colorado River project involves bringing four species of endangered fish back from the brink of extinction while water development projects move forward,” enthused Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Murkowski’s counterpart on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso, also secured inclusion of his “Wildlife Innovation and Longevity Driver (WILD) Act” in the approved package.
The included “WILD” package reauthorizes the Interior Department’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program until fiscal 2023, as well as existing measures to protect endangered species such as elephants, great apes, turtles and tigers. The overall legislation has been dubbed a “mixed bag,” addressing legitimate requests from the states to help align their conservation approaches and to establish core protections for threatened species – including the sage-grouse and other embattled western species.
Following the Senate passage of the bill, Senators held a hearing to draw public attention to the threat posed by invasive species on wildlife, public health and infrastructure. The hearing before the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works touched on the hazards caused by invasive species and the potential role federal funding or policy could play to help states address those challenges.
The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 92 to 8. It now heads to the House for approval.
DOI pushes juniper removal to save sage-grouse in West. The Interior Department is reviving a massive Greater sage-grouse habitat improvement project in southwest Idaho that it halted last summer after an environmental group protested that the project would cause more harm than good to the regional landscape. The Bruneau-Owyhee Sage Grouse Habitat Project proposes to remove western juniper trees within a roughly 6-mile radius of dozens of occupied sage grouse breeding grounds. The original goal of the project is to prevent further encroachment of the trees that can destroy the sagebrush steppe vegetation that the imperiled birds depend on for survival.
The project — developed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Agriculture Department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the state of Idaho — appears to be a slightly revised version of the one outlined in a record of decision (ROD) issued in May to treat about 617,000 acres.
BLM abruptly canceled that project two months later after Western Watersheds Project (WWP) filed a formal appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals asking it to set aside the project pending additional analysis. BLM has apparently conducted that new analysis, and is set to publish a new ROD soon in the Federal Register, according to an advance notice published online.
Derrick Henry, a BLM spokesman, released a statement stating that the bureau was reissuing the ROD, with updates “to address issues raised” during the appeal by WWP. It’s not clear what exact changes are being made to the project, but the new ROD should be available in the coming days to establish what’s different about this new proposal in comparison with last year’s.
In the News
Butterfly group seeks emergency order to halt construction. E&E News, Sub req’d. The North American Butterfly Association last night asked a federal judge to issue an emergency order halting new border construction, arguing that the “irrevocable destruction” of its National Butterfly Center “is now imminent.” The 100-acre butterfly refuge sits directly in the path of 33 miles of new levee barriers that Congress funded in last year’s $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill. The construction would eventually put the majority of the nature center — which is divided by an existing levee, with one-third of the property to its north and the remainder to the south — on the wrong side of new border walls with Mexico. NABA, which operates the butterfly refuge, filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security in late 2017, arguing that the federal government had unlawfully seized its property and violated numerous environmental statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act.
Federal judge may soon deliver fate of Alaska refuge road. E&E News, Sub req’d. A federal judge in Alaska is expected any day now to issue a ruling that could finally decide whether the people of the remote city of King Cove, Alaska, get to build a highly contentious single-lane road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. A year ago, then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed off on a land-swap deal clearing the way for the road, hoping to end a fight that has been underway for decades. Environmentalists say the road would cause irreversible damage to important waterfowl and other animals in the refuge. The Native people of King Cove say the road is desperately needed as a medical evacuation route, allowing them to fly out of nearby Cold Bay. Now it is up to U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason. A review of hundreds of pages of court records reveals that her decision will largely come down to whether she agrees with Zinke’s interpretation of a landmark Alaska-specific federal lands law, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA).
Supreme Court environmental cases: The watch list. E&E News, Sub req’d. The Supreme Court is halfway through its current term, but the bulk of its environmental issues are still awaiting resolution. Court watchers have their eyes on three types of cases: the ones already argued, a few on deck this spring and petitions the high court hasn’t yet decided to review. The justices started the year with an unusual number of cases of interest in the energy and environmental policy world, with issues ranging from endangered frogs and uranium mining to Indian power plants and moose hunting. “They’re kind of all over the map with respect to environmental law,” said University of Maryland law professor Robert Percival. Of the half-dozen of those argued in the fall, the justices have decided only one, issuing a November ruling that remanded a closely watched Endangered Species Act fight to a lower court. The Supreme Court is expected to resolve the others in the next few months in what will be Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s first big chances to influence environmental issues from the high court’s bench.
U.S. to waive environmental reviews for San Diego barrier. E&E News, Sub req’d. The Trump administration said yesterday it would waive environmental reviews to replace up to 14 miles of border barrier in San Diego, shielding itself from potentially crippling delays. The Department of Homeland Security said it would issue the sixth waiver of Donald Trump’s presidency under a 2005 law that empowers the secretary to waive reviews required under environmental laws if the border barrier is deemed to be in national security interests. Those laws include the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act. The waiver, which was published in the Federal Register today, helps clear the way for work to begin this month on replacing a second layer of barrier in San Diego, a steel-mesh wall that worked like a fortress when it was built about a decade ago but is now often breached with powerful battery-operated saws sold in home improvement stores.
Golden-cheeked warbler sings ESA victory song. E&E News, Sub req’d. A federal judge in Texas has upheld Endangered Species Act protections for the golden-cheeked warbler in a decision that could stir mixed emotions for one top Interior Department political appointee. While she was still a private citizen affiliated with conservative organizations, Susan Combs petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the warbler from the ESA list as an endangered species. Now, though, Combs is an Interior senior adviser and the nominee for a long-vacant assistant secretary’s slot in the department that just prevailed in the effort to protect the small, migratory songbird she thought undeserving of federal care. “The scientific evidence demonstrated … threats jeopardized the Warbler’s continued survival, [and] a reasonable person could have concluded the Warbler remained endangered despite promising population predictions and a greater known potential range,” U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks wrote. In his 23-page opinion issued Wednesday, the Austin-based judge further noted that the conservatives’ petition “failed to include any new information on a number of threats to the Warbler’s survival, which the Service is required to consider when determining whether delisting may be warranted.”
