Issues
BLM 2.0 Rule Struck Down by House Lawmakers. This week, the House of Representatives voted to strike down the Bureau of Land Management’s Planning 2.0 rule, a part of an effort by lawmakers to eliminate certain regulations under the Congressional Review Act. As E&E News reports, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) raised a resolution of disapproval (H.J. Res. 44) that passed by a 234-186 vote. Rep. Cheney argued that the rule “takes authority away from people and local communities in my home state of Wyoming and all across the West, and it puts Washington bureaucrats in charge of decisions that directly influence and impact our lives. It significantly dilutes cooperating agency status, and it discounts input from those who are closest to our lands and our resources.”
As IPAA and the Petroleum Association of Wyoming stated in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) in January, “Planning 2.0 presents multiple challenges that will prejudice multiple use interests with a bias against oil and gas resources on public lands…The mitigation standard of a net benefit, or net conservation gain, is policymaking that has been put in place through recent executive and secretarial directives and memorandums, and is not based upon laws or rules that have gone through the lawmaking or rulemaking process.”
Senate committee to hold hearing on ESA reform. The Trump administration and Congress are moving forward with their plans to review Endangered Species Act reform with a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing next Wednesday. The hearing will focus on ways to update the Endangered Species Act for the modern era and will feature testimony from former Wyoming Governor David Freudenthal, Defenders of Wildlife President and CEO Jamie Rapppaport Clark, and former Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe.
Lawmakers have already proposed several bills in the new Congress designed to amend the ESA. Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) has introduced a bill to require economic considerations to be taken into account when making a listing decision, and the Attorneys General of fourteen states have asked the Trump administration to repeal certain ESA habitat rules. IPAA’s ESA Watch team will be monitoring the hearing and will feature highlights in next week’s newsletter.
Parasite may be to blame for rusty-patched bumblebee decline. A U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist, James Strange, believes a parasite may be responsible for killing entire colonies of the rusty-patched bumblebee and related bee species. The parasite, Nosema bombi, bloats male bees until they can no longer mate, preventing the queen bee from producing worker bees and leading the entire colony to starve. Though bumblebees have lived with the parasite for centuries, scientists believe a more deadly breed of the parasite may have been shipped to America from Europe. Researchers hope to raise captive colonies of bees that are resistant to the parasite and release those healthy colonies into the wild.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized its decision to list the bee as an endangered species earlier this year, claiming that the species is on the brink of extinction due to habitat loss, disease, pesticides, and climate change. Today, the Trump administration announced it was delaying the listing until March 21, stating it will give them time to review “questions of fact, law and policy.” IPAA has commented that the Service relied on “inappropriate and unreliable data” and based its decision on speculation rather than facts. The agency’s decision has been placed on hold while the Trump administration reviews regulations passed in the waning days of Obama’s presidency.
BLM implements emergency measures to restore Utah sage-grouse habitat. An isolated population of greater sage-grouse in the Sheeprocks area of Utah has experienced a 40 percent population decline over the last four years, prompting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to implement “adaptive management measures” mandated by the federal sage-grouse conservation plans finalized in 2015. The BLM noted that the “vast majority” of Utah’s sage-grouse populations “remain at normal populations and habitat levels.”
BLM will make the area “a focal point for fire suppression” and will prioritize efforts to restore sage-brush habitat in the area. The agency will also “seek to minimize impacts from rights-of-way developments.” BLM’s actions come shortly after Idaho Senator Jim Risch (R) and Utah Representative Rob Bishop (R) introduced identical bills in Congress that would allow state governors to block portions of the federal sage-grouse plans that do correspond to their state’s conservation strategies.
“No one knows how to take care of Utah better than Utahns,” Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and cosponsor of the Senate bill said in a statement earlier this week. “Our State…has spent millions of dollars restoring half a million acres of sage grouse habitat, but despite this success, the federal government has forced its own plan on us. This bill will restore the proper state-federal sage grouse management balance.”
In the News
BLM to host public sessions on sage-grouse habitat. Herald and News. The Bureau of Land Management will hold eight public open houses throughout the West in February to gather input on the agency’s proposal to withdraw a subset of lands that are sage-grouse strongholds from future mining claims, according to a news release. This is the next step in a process to prevent the greater sage-grouse from being listed under the Endangered Species Act. The draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) analyzes five alternatives, ranging from no action to the withdrawal of approximately 10 million acres of federal locatable minerals in certain areas that are particularly crucial to the greater sage-grouse in six states: Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. Neither the segregation, nor any subsequent withdrawal, would prohibit ongoing or future mining exploration or extraction operations on valid pre-existing claims.
Western roots expected to inform Gorsuch’s perspective. Capital Press. The Western roots of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch are encouraging to natural resource attorneys who hope his experience will inform environmental cases affecting agriculture. As a native of Colorado, Gorsuch has direct knowledge of the vast Western landscape and the natural resource economy that depends on it, said William Perry Pendley, president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation. Most of the eight justices on the nation’s highest court hail from states without massive federal land holdings, he said. Four are from New York, two are from California, one is from New Jersey and one is from Georgia. If confirmed, Gorsuch is likely to review lawsuits over the Endangered Species Act, sage grouse regulations and federal power under the Clean Water Act, which are percolating in lower courts, said Karen Budd-Falen, a natural resources attorney who practices in the 10th Circuit.
Greens speak out against Zinke. E&E News (sub req’d). A broad coalition of environmental and consumer protection groups today urged senators to reject Rep. Ryan Zinke’s bid to lead the Interior Department. The Montana Republican “has prioritized the narrow, short-term interests of corporate and extractive industries, championing dirty fossil fuel development on public lands while supporting significantly reduced environmental review of and public involvement in decisions about this development,” the Center for Biological Diversity, Public Citizen and Friends of the Earth wrote to lawmakers. “Based on this record, we ask that you oppose his nomination,” said the letter, which was signed by 167 other groups. They took particular issue with votes Zinke has cast to increase logging and drilling on public lands and roll back the reach of the Endangered Species Act.
Liz Cheney wants to wage war on regulations. E&E News (sub req’d). When it comes to cracking down on environmental rules, President Trump has a friend in rookie lawmaker Liz Cheney. For the Wyoming Republican and older daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, promises to rein in regulatory “overreach” and to revive the coal industry were central to her 2016 campaign. In her first month on the job, Cheney has already introduced several environmental bills. They include a measure to remove the gray wolf from the list of threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act and a bill to undo one of the Obama administration’s signature federal land management rules. Cheney is making it a priority to “rein in out-of-control federal bureaucracies, reduce unconstitutional power grabs by agencies such as the
Inhofe bill aims to boost state energy production authority. E&E News (sub req’d). Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe (R) yesterday reintroduced a pair of bills aimed at giving individual states sole decisionmaking authority over energy resources within their boundaries, while also looking to ensure the Trump administration is faithful to its promise to expand energy production on public lands. Inhofe said the “Federal Land Freedom Act” would give states “the ability to aggressively and responsibly develop the federal energy estate” by allowing the creation of individual regulatory programs to govern leasing and permitting. The legislation would prohibit the Interior Department from refusing to approve state-level programs and would bar judicial review of leases and permits, as well as exempting states from having to follow the National Environmental Protection Act, Endangered Species Act or National Historic Preservation Act.
Greens say Gorsuch would limit their ‘access to the courts.’ E&E News (sub req’d). In 2013, Judge Neil Gorsuch dissented from his colleagues on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who allowed environmental groups to intervene in a lawsuit over off-highway vehicles in the Santa Fe National Forest. Gorsuch maintained in his dissent that green groups were adequately represented in the case by the Forest Service. Since he was picked last week by President Trump to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s spot in the Supreme Court, the Sierra Club has been sounding the alarm about Gorsuch’s dissents in the New Mexico forest case and others as signs that he would keep advocacy groups from intervening in lawsuits. In general, Gorsuch’s record is relatively light on environmental cases. But the few cases where he has ruled against environmental and outdoors advocates on issues such as legal standing and intervention show that he may approach access to courts in a similar manner to Scalia.
Democrats float bill to block Trump’s border wall. E&E News (sub req’d). Democratic lawmakers are aiming to stop President Trump’s efforts to extend the nation’s border wall with new legislation that would prohibit the construction of additional fencing along the 2,000-mile boundary with Mexico. Democratic Reps. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Adriano Espaillat of New York both introduced bills last week that would curb Trump’s recent executive order calling for an “impassable physical barrier” along the U.S.-Mexico line. Defenders of Wildlife President Jamie Rappaport Clark praised both bills, saying that new border fences would “bisect and isolate iconic Southwestern landscapes and push vulnerable borderland species such as jaguars, Mexican gray wolves and ocelots to the brink of extinction.”
Idaho governor plans appeal of federal lawsuit over sage grouse conservation. Boise State Public Radio. Idaho Gov. “C.L” Butch Otter says he plans to appeal the dismissal of a lawsuit brought against the Interior Department in 2015. The dismissed lawsuit alleges the department violated federal environmental rules when it withdrew almost four million acres of land in Idaho for conservation of the greater sage grouse. Otter told reporters Tuesday that federal officials in the Obama administration focused too much on habitat where sage grouse don’t live, instead of spending resources on conserving current habitat. “Their new interpretation is not only where the Endangered Species is, but where it may want to go,” says Otter. “And so that goes far beyond the initial intent of critical habitat.”
