Weekly Newsletter | March 8, 2019
Issues
Acting Interior Secretary declares victory in Obama era sage-grouse plan revisions. Earlier this week at the 84th North American Wildlife & Natural Resources Conference in Denver, acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced that the revisions to Obama-era greater sage-grouse conservation plans are all locally driven and will maintain protections for the flamboyant bird. Likening the revisions to small tweaks that make the plans more user-friendly in the Western states, Bernhardt claims the first thing he did was talk to each governor covered by the Obama-era plans.
“I basically said, ‘Ah, governor, do you like your plan?'” he said. “If the answer’s yes, you can keep your plan; we’ll keep our plan. If the answer’s no, then in that case let’s talk about the changes you would make.” The acting Secretary said the governors were all serious about maintaining protections for the bird to ensure conservation of the species while limiting a federal listing. Most of the governors in the seven states covered by the revised plans have expressed support for the changes.
In a recent statement, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) asserted that states “have primary authority over managing” sage-grouse within their borders because the bird is not listed for federal protection. “Their support and engagement — as well as that of private citizens, landowners and federal land management agencies — is critical to our shared goal of ensuring healthy populations of sage-grouse for future generations,” the statement said.
According to Bernhardt, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to finalize the revisions in the next two weeks.
Sage-grouse Golden Triangle sale nets over $80 million. In last week’s online Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and gas lease auction, the U.S. government received bids for about 70 percent of the land it offered. Thirty-one parcels in Wyoming containing 57,800 acres of sage-grouse habitat were among those being auctioned, with conservationists dubbing the area the “golden triangle” because of its importance to the species.
A BLM spokeswoman said the auction yielded nearly $88 million for leasing rights on 437 parcels and the revenue will be split almost evenly between the federal government and Wyoming. The sale took place over five days from Feb. 25 through March 1. It had originally been set for late last year, but a federal judge’s order in September required BLM to provide additional public comment and a 30-day protest period for the 565 land parcels, all which are in sage-grouse habitat.
Despite criticism from conservation groups, the Trump administration and prominent industry voices say federal and state restrictions on well densities and surface construction are adequate to maintain the bird populations. Current restrictions on core grouse-management areas stipulate that well densities cannot exceed an average of one per 640 acres. In addition, no construction on the surface is allowed within six-tenths of a mile of a lek — the territory where males gather to strut and attract females during breeding season.
In a recent statement, President of the Wyoming Petroleum Association, Pete Obermueller echoed sentiments that current restrictions are enough to maintain sage-grouse habitat and conservation, stating, “…Wyoming’s conservation plan is laser-focused on ensuring that development doesn’t occur where the activity is proven to harm the bird. If an oil and gas operator leases acres inside a core area, they know full well the restrictions they face and they are signing up to meet Wyoming’s very high standards.”
The BLM will hold its next quarterly Wyoming oil and gas lease sale March 19-20.
In the News
Bill would increase botanical expertise. E&E News, Sub req’d. More botanists would blossom throughout the Interior Department under a bill planted in the House today. Make that transplanted. Citing the dangers of climate change as well as a shortage of highly trained botanists within Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Geological Survey, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) reintroduced legislation intended to strengthen federal botanical science. “Botanical science research is an essential element in our fight against climate change,” Quigley said, adding that “botanic knowledge will also help us protect endangered species, reduce food insecurity, and understand how we can best preserve our environment for future generations.” The bill would establish a program of botanical science research within Interior and allow the department to hire additional personnel. It would create a student loan repayment program for botanical scientists to encourage more students and support them once they’ve graduated. The bill also calls for a plan for the use of locally adapted, native plant materials in federal land management activities. Quigley, the vice chairman of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, first introduced the “Botanical Sciences and Native Plant Materials Research, Restoration and Promotion Act” in February 2017. The initial version of the bill gained 26 House co-sponsors and was mirrored in the Senate by a measure authored by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) but not otherwise advanced in the Republican-controlled 115th Congress. Still, the legislation has shown some bipartisan appeal.
IG again asked to examine Bernhardt’s Calif. water ties. E&E News, Sub req’d. A second private watchdog group today urged the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General to probe acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s alleged actions benefiting the Westlands Water District, one of his former law and lobbying clients. In an extensively footnoted 15-page complaint, the Campaign Legal Center cited “recent reports” in the media suggesting that Bernhardt violated a Trump administration ethics pledge by participating in Westlands-related decisionmaking after joining Interior. “Failure to investigate his apparent violations of the law will encourage high-ranking political appointees like Mr. Bernhardt to continue promoting the interests of former clients at the public’s expense,” the complaint states. The new complaint follows a similar eight-page complaint filed Feb. 19 by the Campaign for Accountability. And in a four-page letter yesterday, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut likewise pressed the IG to investigate. “We are concerned by what appears to be clear evidence that Mr. Bernhardt, while acting to weaken Endangered Species Act rules, may have violated his ethics pledge and federal conflict of interest regulations by participating in decisions that directly affect a former client,” the two lawmakers wrote. Interior said Bernhardt has acted properly as he has navigated a terrain thick with technical terms and definitions.
Yellowstone grizzly bears star in court and Congress. E&E News, Sub req’d. The much-litigated Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear would lose its Endangered Species Act protections under legislation revived by two Wyoming Republican lawmakers. And there would be nothing courts could do about it if Rep. Liz Cheney and Sen. Mike Enzi can push their companion measures through certain resistance in the House and Senate. Dubbed, once again, the “Grizzly Bear State Management Act,” the legislation would effectively reverse a federal judge’s decision in September that restored the Yellowstone-area grizzly bear to the ESA list. The bill would also block further judicial review. “Unfortunately, we have seen environmental groups take advantage of the court system in the face of wildlife management experts and the science presented before us,” Enzi said in a statement, adding that the legislation would stop “further frivolous litigation on this issue.” Beyond these particular bears, the conservative lawmakers’ proposal to block judicial review marks the latest use of an aggressive and controversial legislative tactic (Greenwire, May 21, 2018). Last Congress, for instance, the Republican-controlled House passed a bill to remove the gray wolf in the Lower 48 from the ESA list along with the gray wolf in the western Great Lakes region. The bill exempted those rules from judicial review, a point denounced by critics.
Lawmakers looking to do right by the right whale. E&E News, Sub req’d. A newly recast House panel this week will review the myriad threats to the North Atlantic right whale. Now called the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife, the panel chaired by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) has gotten off to a pretty fast start as part of the House Natural Resources Committee. The hearing Thursday will be its third since Democrats took over this year. “I welcome the ability of this subcommittee in this new Congress to identify challenges and work to build commonsense, scientifically based solutions,” Huffman said at an earlier hearing. “That means this subcommittee is going to be very busy.” With the North Atlantic right whale, in particular, lawmakers and the Trump administration alike have their hands full. Weighing up to 70 tons and growing up to 52 feet in length, the North Atlantic right whale was initially driven close to extinction by commercial whaling. The whale is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, and fewer than 500 of the animals are now thought to be alive. The major cause of death and serious injury for the species in recent years has been entanglement in fishing gear, with vessel strikes also proving lethal and underwater noise pollution causing problems. NOAA Fisheries’ latest five-year review, completed in 2017, cited a litany of woes, including “a low rate of reproduction, longer calving intervals, declining population abundance, continued human-caused mortality … and uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of conservation regulation.”
Butterfly advocates pivot to appeals court. E&E News, Sub req’d. The North American Butterfly Association is heading to a federal appeals court to fight President Trump’s border wall, which would cut through the group’s South Texas butterfly refuge. The group filed a notice of appeal yesterday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, setting up a challenge to a recent lower court defeat. The butterfly group runs a 100-acre refuge in Mission, Texas, on the border with Mexico. The site is in the path of a 33-mile route of new levee barriers funded by Congress in last year’s omnibus spending bill and would be severed by the construction. The group says the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to build the barriers violates both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the claims last month, ruling that DHS was authorized under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to waive environmental laws for such projects
Interior moves to strip gray wolf protections. E&E News, Sub req’d. The Trump administration plans to remove Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the Lower 48 states, the latest in a yearslong drama that has sparked federal lawsuits and much debate. The Fish and Wildlife Service plans to soon publish a proposed rule removing ESA protections for gray wolves, acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced today at the 84th North American Wildlife & Natural Resources Conference in downtown Denver. The rule will be published in the Federal Register and made available for public comment, Fish and Wildlife confirmed to E&E News. An Interior spokeswoman said this will be done “in the next few days.” Under the proposed rule, management for the gray wolves would be returned to the individual states, according to a statement from FWS. The new rule would not apply to the Mexican wolf, a subspecies that is separately protected as endangered, or to the red wolf, a separate species. Bernhardt’s announcement follows Fish and Wildlife’s decision last summer to re-evaluate the status of the gray wolf and make a determination about whether the species has recovered enough to remove it as an endangered species.
