Issues
Senate committee examines modernizing the Endangered Species Act. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on Wednesday focused on updating and reforming the 43-year-old Endangered Species Act (ESA) – a shared priority for many in Congress and the Trump administration. Critics of the law say it hurts landowners and businesses while largely failing to actually protect and recover species.
Former Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal (D) told the committee that, though he generally favors executive branch action, “legislative action is needed to affect mid-course corrections to focus the ESA on its original objectives and to improve its operation in our current circumstance.” He continued, noting that in recent years, “the mix of regulations, court decisions, policy guidance and individual agency actions by Presidential administrations of differing but still well intentioned views have created a nearly unworkable system.”
Committee Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-DE) said he was also “reluctant to do anything to compromise the successes we have achieved” through the ESA. Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe, now the CEO of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said the ESA “is the world’s gold standard” but that Congress should focus on making it “stronger, faster and better for the 21st century because life literally depends on it.” Any ESA reform bill would need at least eight Democrats to sign on to get past a Senate filibuster.
Federal judge pauses critical habitat litigation. A U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama granted a motion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service requesting a stay in litigation surrounding critical habitat rules under the ESA. The motion pauses proceedings for 60 days to allow the Trump administration to become familiar with the issue.
In November 2016, 18 states filed a lawsuit against Fish and Wildlife, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of Commerce challenging updates made to critical habitat rules under the Obama administration. The states alleged that the rule unlawfully expanded the federal government’s control over state lands. Specifically, the rule could potentially allow both occupied and unoccupied habitats to be considered for designation.
Once an area is listed as critical habitat, federal agencies must consult with Fish and Wildlife before approving and/or funding projects on that land. IPAA and other industry groups requested that the policy be withdrawn last year. As IPAA’s Dan Naatz said at the time, “The Fish and Wildlife Service’s re-interpretation of critical habitat and proposed expansion of authority is not supported by the ESA and is at odds with the intent of Congress that critical habitat be limited in scope and focus on the immediate survival needs of species.”
Conservation group sues Trump administration over bumblebee listing freeze. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the Trump Administration on Tuesday for temporarily halting the listing of the rusty patched bumblebee as part of a larger 60 day suspension on all pending regulations. In the complaint, NRDC argues that agencies cannot suspend the listing because the rule was published in the federal register on January 11th under the Obama administration, before the new administration took office.
While groups like NRDC and the Xerces Society have voiced their anger at the decision, other groups support the delayed listing, noting private entities—rather than the federal government—are better suited to protect the bees. The American Farm Bureau Federation’s director of congressional relations Ryan Yates said they were, “excited that the administration is taking a second look.” If the species listing passes after the freeze ends on March 21, the rusty patched bumblebee will be the first North American bee to receive recognition under the ESA.
In the News
GOP senators reintroduce bills cracking down on lawsuits, wolf policy. E&E News (sub req’d). Republican senators are supporting a series of bills that would make it harder for the Fish and Wildlife Service to resolve Endangered Species Act lawsuits and would force the agency to provide more information on proposed protections for Mexican wolves. Two of the three ESA bills introduced Tuesday were from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the majority whip. The “Endangered Species Act Settlement Reform Act,” S. 375, would require the Interior Department to provide public notification of when ESA suits, often from environmental groups, are filed and would set a lower standard for when outside groups, such as interested businesses, can intervene. Cornyn also reintroduced the “21st Century Endangered Species Transparency Act,” S. 376, which would require the secretaries of the Interior and Commerce, who jointly implement the ESA, to publish any scientific and commercial data online that are used for adding or removing animals and plants from the endangered or threatened species lists.
Split court refuses to rehear key critical habitat case. E&E News (sub req’d). A federal court has declined to rehear a controversial case over critical habitat for an endangered frog species. Judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 8-6 to deny rehearing the case en banc, or in front of the full court. Today’s decision lets stand a three-judge panel’s June 2016 split ruling that upheld the federal government’s habitat decision for the frog. The legal question at the center of the case was whether the government can designate an area as critical habitat for an endangered species even if that species doesn’t occupy that area. At issue is the habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog, which was historically found in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Today there are about 100 frogs left in Mississippi. The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2012 designated 6,477 acres as critical habitat for the frog, of which 1,544 acres was private land located in St. Tammany Parish, La., where the frogs haven’t been seen for decades.
Ohio critics hope bats might slow down pipeline project. Associated Press. Opponents of a high-pressure natural gas pipeline planned for the northern half of Ohio say they’re hoping the existence of a threatened bat species will at least delay the $2 billion project. Habitats for the northern long-eared bat along the proposed route of the 255-mile-long NEXUS pipeline could result in restrictions for clearing rights of way. The bats nest in trees during the spring and summer months. The two companies building the pipeline say they’ve developed contingency plans that will include the number of bats likely to be killed if they have to fell trees while bats are nesting. The NEXUS pipeline is designed to carry 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the Appalachian shale fields across Ohio and into Michigan and Canada.
EPA criticizes Atlantic Sunrise project review. E&E News (sub req’d). An environmental review of the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline, which recently won a final sign-off from federal regulators, has drawn criticism from U.S. EPA officials who worry that the quick approval may leave the public without a way to scrutinize portions of the assessment that have yet to be completed. In comments submitted Monday to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, EPA underlined the information gaps it saw in a draft environmental impact statement for Atlantic Sunrise that was released for public comment in June. The Atlantic Sunrise approval was granted on [FERC chairman Norman] Bay’s last day, Feb. 3. On Feb. 7, FERC received EPA’s comments on the final environmental impact statement, which led off with a laundry list of weaknesses it saw in the previous iteration, including insufficient information and analysis on issues including geology, streams and wetlands, vegetation, endangered species, and cumulative project impacts.
