Issues

IPAA Conducts Meetings on Capitol Hill. This week in Washington, D.C., 70 members of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) held nearly 150 meetings with key legislators and their staff to discuss issues critical to crude oil exports, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and energy tax reform.  During these meetings, IPAA stressed the importance of transparency and use of best scientific data to inform future listing decisions under the ESA. For additional information please contact Sam McDonald at SMcDonald@ipaa.org.  

IPAA Submits Monarch Butterfly Comments. This week, IPAA submitted joint comments with the American Petroleum Institute (API) to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in response to request for comment on the status of the Monarch butterfly. The comments highlight the negligible impact of oil and gas operations on the butterfly’s population and expansive habitat range.

“No evidence exists in the literature of adverse effects from oil and gas industry operations on the species itself or on the destruction, modification, or curtailment of the species’ habitat or range,” the joint comments state. “Accordingly, if, at the conclusion of appropriate review, the species is listed, a 4(d) rule should be written to exempt or exclude the activities of the oil and gas industry from the prohibition against incidental take.”

In February, the Service announced $3.2 million in funding to help protect the butterfly population. That same month, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a suit against the federal government alleging that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not sufficiently take warnings about the impact of a widely used herbicide on the monarch. The 60-day comment period on the butterfly closed on March 2nd.

USGS: Oil and Natural Gas Development Can Coexist With Greater Sage-Grouse. A study published last week by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) adds to a growing body of evidence that efforts taken to mitigate the effect of oil and gas development on Greater sage-grouse habitat are working.

Scientists compared chick survival rates of sage-grouse habitats in a 362-square-mile area of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin from 2008 to 2011 through applying enhanced mitigation techniques to a portion of the area. Researchers monitored and measured nest survival in unaltered areas without oil and gas development and areas where enhanced mitigation techniques were used. According to a USGS press release, the study concluded that “Greater sage-grouse nests found in natural gas development areas where mitigation actions were taken to minimize impacts had slightly higher nest survival than similar areas where such actions were not taken.”

Western Energy Alliance vice president of government and public affairs Kathleen Sgamma welcomed the study’s results. “We’ve documented how companies have implemented over 770 specific sage grouse protection measures in Wyoming and across the West,” she told E&E News (sub req’d). “The high rates of nest survival shown in this USGS study provide further evidence that energy development is compatible with sage grouse conservation.”

Federal Lawmakers Concerned About Potential Northern Long-Eared Bat Listing. Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee wrote a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week, asking for more research documentation before the agency decides whether to list the Northern long-eared bat under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). According to the letter, an endangered or threatened designation could “impose unnecessary regulatory burdens on economic development, forestry, wind power generation, energy development, agriculture, and conservation projects.”

U.S. Senators are also concerned about the potential impact of a listing. This week, South Dakota Sen. John Thune introduced legislation to prevent the Service from listing the bat by withholding implementation funding. According to the Senator, “This listing is not necessary, it will have very harmful impacts on the economy and jobs in Black Hills, and isn’t going to do anything—as far as we can tell—to address the fundamental problem with the bats.”

At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) also asked Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell about what conservation measures would be implemented if the Northern long-eared bat is listed as threatened. Jewell answered that the 4(d) rule will help determine what measures can be taken to protect the species’ habitat, and that comments are currently being gathered to help inform what practices the energy, ranching, and logging will need to adopt to mitigate potential impacts on the bat population. The Service is due to decide whether to list the bat by April 2.

In the News

Former Interior chief Salazar calls for better ESA implementation. E&E News (sub req’d). Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar defended the Endangered Species Act yesterday but suggested that it should be enforced more judiciously and revisited by lawmakers. “I think the Endangered Species Act has done some good things for the country,” he said in an interview in the offices of Energy & Environment Publishing after shooting an episode of OnPoint (E&ETV, March 5).”We have species that are no longer endangered and significant progress that has been made,” he said.

FWS pledges $46M for state conservation efforts. E&E News (sub req’d). The Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday announced grants for wildlife agencies in all 50 states and major U.S. territorial areas totaling just shy of $46 million. The State Wildlife Grant Program distributions help to implement projects to conserve priority species identified in each state’s wildlife action plan. They were determined based on population and geographic area. The biggest grant recipients: Texas, California and Alaska, which each received nearly $2.3 million in fiscal 2015 funding.

Kansas oil and gas industry switches to ‘survival mode’. Wichita Eagle. The drop in drilling has been sharp, said Todd Allam of VAL Energy. Allam sees a further drop in Kansas drilling this spring and summer as oil continues to flood in from shale regions, such as the Bakken in North Dakota – but only through the second quarter. Kansas drilling will also be suppressed by drillers leery of restrictions on working during the mating of the lesser prairie chicken in the second quarter.

78 lawmakers urge Jewell to abandon gray wolf delisting. E&E News (sub req’d). A bipartisan group of 78 House lawmakers called on Interior Secretary Sally Jewell today to reduce but not eliminate federal protections for gray wolves in Wyoming and the Great Lakes states. Drafted by the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, and his predecessor in that position, Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the letter urges Jewell to “end the cycle of policy proposal and legal defeats over gray wolves at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

County asks for state support in opposition to land restrictions. Elko Daily Free Press. In response to a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service memo calling for stringent measures protecting sage grouse, county officials agreed to write to Gov. Brian Sandoval asking for the state to join in their disapproval. An Oct. 27, 2014, letter from Fish & Wildlife Service to the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service identifies sage grouse strongholds where the agency recommends “strong, durable, and meaningful protections” to ensure the birds aren’t listed as endangered or threatened.

Endangered Species Deal Harms Property Owners, Court Told. Law 360. The National Association of Home Builders has urged the D.C. Circuit to renew its challenge to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service settlement agreements amending the Endangered Species Act, saying the service’s failure to consider whether 251 affected species should remain on the candidate list harms property owners.

Environmentalists slam new BLM plan. Durango Herald. Juli Slivka, a planning specialist for The Wilderness Society, said the BLM missed the opportunity to properly manage public-land issues. Megan Mueller, a biologist with Rocky Mountain Wild, said the BLM shortchanged the Gunnison sage-grouse, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently listed as threatened. “The BLM put the interests of oil and gas companies ahead of wildlife,” Mueller said. Fewer than 5,000 sage-grouse remain in seven isolated populations in southwestern Colorado, Mueller said.