Weekly Newsletter |May 17, 2019

Issues

2020 DOI appropriations bill ignores agency reshuffle, funds Sage-Grouse conservation. On Wednesday, the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee passed a bill that would send more than $37.2 billion in fiscal 2020 to a variety of energy and environmental agencies, about $1.7 billion more than current funding. Lawmakers approved the bill on a voice vote with no amendments.

The bill is “a product of hard work and collaboration,” said subcommittee Chairwoman Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) at the markup, adding that the subcommittee received more than 2,000 requests from members to include provisions and managed to honor more than 93% of them.

Though bipartisan-supported, the bill received criticism from Full Appropriations Committee ranking member Kay Granger (R-Texas) who complained that some policies included in prior years had “fallen out” of this year’s bill, specifically provisions that would “protect traditional hunting, ammunition and fishing tackle; provide regulatory relief for farmers and livestock producers; and support state-led conservation of sage-grouse.”

In anticipation of a busy investigative season for the Office of Inspector General, which has been fielding complaints about the Department of Interior’s (DOI) political leadership, the bill would boost the office’s funding by $4 million to $56 million. However, the bill does not include money for DOI’s reorganization, which received $14 million from Congress in fiscal 2019.

DOI’s three largest agencies — the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service — all would receive more money under the bill. Appropriators would give the Bureau of Land Management $1.4 billion, including $73 million for sage-grouse conservation.

New ESA bill gaining steam in Senate. Earlier this week, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced S. 1426, legislation that gives states and counties veto power over certain Endangered Species Act (ESA) court settlements.

Sponsored by eight other Republican Senators, the new bill strikes at the heart of consent decrees and other court settlements that have regularly been the result of lawsuits filed by environmental advocacy organizations. The bill also blocks the payment of litigation costs incurred as part of a case resolved through a consent decree or settlement. The bill declares that courts “shall not approve” an ESA-related consent decree “unless each State and county in which the Secretary of the Interior believes a species occurs approves the covered settlement.”

“By making data publicly available and including all affected parties in the settlement process, these proposals aim to increase transparency and give a voice to local stakeholders,” Cornyn said, calling them “commonsense reforms.”

Cornyn also introduced a separate ESA bill requiring the publication of information used in endangered species decisions. Both ESA bills come as the Interior Department nears the final stages of reviewing a batch of related regulatory revisions. The proposed regulatory changes would streamline consultations between federal agencies and the process for removing a species from the ESA list.

In the News

Gray wolf delisting debate heats up. E&E News, Sub req’d. Lots of people care about the gray wolf, the Fish and Wildlife Service can now confirm. Not that there was ever any real doubt, given the animal’s many prior legal, regulatory and political entanglements. But with a public comment period about to close on a proposal to remove Endangered Species Act protections, officials can start to quantify the concern. More than 60,000 comments have arrived as of today, most of them opposed the proposal to remove Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves across most of the Lower 48. And if past practice holds true, it’s likely that tens of thousands more will arrive just before the comment period expires Tuesday. “The vast majority of the American public has shown time and again that they are supportive of wolf conservation and want science to guide wolf recovery,” Michael Paul Nelson, a professor at Oregon State University, said in a statement this week.

Calif. AG sues Westlands to block ‘unlawful’ dam project. E&E News, Sub req’d. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra today sued Westlands Water District — a state agency — for working to raise Shasta Dam in Northern California. The Democrat alleged that Westlands violated state law by acting as the lead agency on a project that has been supported by the Trump administration. “This project is unlawful,” Becerra said in a statement. “It would create significant environmental and cultural impacts for the communities and habitats surrounding the Shasta Dam.” A second, similar lawsuit was filed by a coalition of environmental groups, which argued raising the dam would inundate the McCloud River, which is protected under the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The more-than-600-foot Shasta Dam impounds the largest reservoir in California. The Bureau of Reclamation facility funnels water into the Central Valley Project, which delivers water to farms and cities in the southern part of the state.

DHS bypassing green laws for construction. E&E News, Sub req’d. The Department of Homeland Security announced today it will waive dozens of environmental laws to construct border walls on public lands along the nation’s border with Mexico. Environmentalists criticized the decision, revealed in today’s Federal Register, which comes less than a week after U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened a 60-day public comment period for the same project (Greenwire, May 8) “The Trump administration just ignored bedrock environmental and public health laws to plow a disastrous border wall through protected, spectacular wildlands,” said the Center for Biological Diversity’s borderlands campaigner, Laiken Jordahl. DHS announced earlier this month it plans to replace 63 miles of “dilapidated and outdated” border fencing across southwest Arizona, primarily through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. Smaller sections of fence would also be replaced in the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge and Coronado National Memorial.

Trump appointees chose coal over crawfish. E&E News, Sub req’d. Crawfish have been disappearing as fast as coal jobs in Appalachia. But despite Obama-era endangered species rules meant to protect two freshwater crustaceans found nowhere else but southern West Virginia, a handful of mines have reopened. A new trove of documents, first reported on by The Washington Post, reveals how that happened: The coal industry and West Virginia regulators convinced Interior Department political appointees to override concerns among Fish and Wildlife Service career staff. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) last week said it and other environmental groups will sue if federal agencies do not reconsider coal mining impacts on the threatened Big Sandy and endangered Guyandotte River crawfish species (E&E News PM, May 10).

Panel has bear fight over grizzlies. E&E News, Sub req’d. A House subcommittee hearing on grizzly bears legislation highlighted a divide on the purpose of the Endangered Species Act and protections for the Yellowstone area population of bears. The split at yesterday’s Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife hearing was not limited to lawmakers, but included grizzly bear researchers, state regulators, legal experts and members of Native American tribes who consider the bears to be sacred. The legislative hearing focused entirely on the merits of H.R. 2532, introduced last week by Natural Resources Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.). Grijalva’s bill proposes to permanently extend ESA protections to grizzly bears outside of already protected lands, such as national parks.