- ICYMI: Today is Endangered Species Day! The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) has worked with its allies for years to address rising challenges related to the Endangered Species Act. Visit our website, esawatch.org, to learn more.
Issues
Congress and Co-ops pleased with Administration’s decision on lesser prairie chicken. Congressional Republicans offered cautious approval of the Obama Administration’s decision to drop its appeal of recent court rulings that removed the threatened status from the lesser prairie chicken, while lamenting the time and money spent listing the bird in the first place. On the heels of the news, an electric utility co-op association recommended to its members that they push ahead with voluntary efforts to conserve the bird’s habitat.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association advised its members to maintain their participation in the voluntary range-wide plan, as “it is important to maintain that effort to be in the best position to stave off potential future efforts for federal regulation.” The Obama Administration announced last week that it would not appeal recent court rulings by a U.S. District Court that removed Endangered Species Act protections for the lesser prairie chicken. Critics of the agency’s 2014 decision to list the chicken as “threatened” had said the designation was unnecessary because of efforts by landowners, industry, and states to protect the bird and its habitat. The Fish and Wildlife Service said that it still “intends to reassess the status of the species based on the court’s ruling and the best available scientific data.”
Conservation group sues feds over northern long-eared bat. The Defenders of Wildlife asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this week to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to invalidate the 4(d) rule it set for the northern long-eared bat and reconsider its decision to list the bat as threatened instead of endangered. The Service published its final 4(d) rule on the bat in January, exempting oil and gas activities from incidental take prohibitions in the same way that forest management activities were exempted, reflecting the minimal impact energy development has on the bat.
Jane Davenport, a senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, said the “bat needs the full extent of the protection the ESA provides, and threatened status simply isn’t enough.” The Fish and Wildlife Service countered by saying the “science has shown that the primary threat to the northern long-eared bat is white-nose syndrome. Our threatened listing with a 4(d) rule allows us to work with diverse partners throughout the bat’s range to tailor meaningful conservation efforts while focusing on the primary threat to
Oil pipelines run afoul of the ESA in the Midwest. Existing and proposed oil pipelines are facing confrontations over endangered species listings in Michigan and Iowa. Opponents of a proposed oil pipeline are pressing the state of Iowa to stall construction on the pipeline until all of its federal permits are approved. Meanwhile, the National Wildlife Federation filed a lawsuit claiming federal regulators improperly permitted an oil pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac by neglecting to consider the full affects an oil spill could have on wildlife within and bordering the Great Lakes.
Dakota Access, a Texas-based petroleum company, had planned to begin construction this week on a 1,150-mile pipeline designed to carry oil from the Bakken oil fields to a storage facility in Illinois. The company had hoped to finish laying pipe before winter to avoid disturbing farmland, but the Sierra Club said in its filing last week that construction should not begin until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues the appropriate permits following its review of the pipeline’s potential impacts on wildlife, including the threatened Dakota skipper butterfly. The Corps’ assessment could take as many as 90 days to complete.
The National Wildlife Federation also filed a suit Monday against the approval of 63-year-old pipelines under the Straits of Mackinac in the Great Lakes. The Federation says the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration violated the Endangered Species Act by not fully assessing the impacts a spill would have on shorelines and wildlife. On its route from Wisconsin to Canada, the pipelines cross areas inhabited by 12 species listed as threatened or endangered. Both of Michigan’s senators also weighed in.
In the News
Global warming, pesticides lead to decline in monarch butterfly population. Cronkite News. The monarch is safe inside the walls of the pavilion, but the reality outside is grim for a creature that is perhaps the most recognizable butterfly in America. Global warming and pesticide use are disrupting the monarch’s migration patterns through Arizona and destroying its young’s food source, the milkweed. The population of migrating monarchs has dropped by as much as 90 percent in two decades, according to Adriane Grimaldi, director of education at Butterfly Wonderland. Now, butterfly advocates and the federal government are battling over whether the best way to protect monarchs is to put them on the endangered species list, even if that could mean halting research and stopping a generations-old practice of school children “raising” monarchs in science classrooms.
Catastrophic bat disease found in Douglas, Iron counties. Duluth News Tribune. The bat population in one Grant County, Wis., site declined 94 percent in a recent survey after the devastating white-nose syndrome fungus ravished the colony. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reported the news this week confirming that the disease is doing what it was predicted to do — kill bats and potentially wipe out entire colonies. The DNR also said white-nose syndrome has been confirmed for the first time in Douglas, Iron, Pierce, Manitowoc, Sauk and Green counties. “We are finding white-nose syndrome on a widespread basis, and the largest sites are all home to the fungus responsible for this disease,” said Paul White, Department of Natural Resources conservation biologist leading the Wisconsin Bat Program.
Obama admin slams grouse, lands riders in veto threat. E&E News (sub req’d). Natural resources and public lands riders in the House defense authorization bill have prompted a veto threat from President Obama. The Office of Management and Budget decried “non-germane policy riders, such as those undermining the Endangered Species Act as well as public land management statutes,” in a statement of administrative policy released last night, saying the provisions “have nothing to do with national defense.” The administration came out in force against language in the House bill that would allow states with greater sage grouse management plans to block the federal rule. The legislation would also prevent the Interior secretary from changing the bird’s conservation status until Sept. 20, 2026.
Fast-warming Atlantic to get new climate strategy. Courthouse News Service. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration requests public input on its draft action plan to address climate change threats to its northeast fisheries and protected species. The plan was developed in response to increasing demand for science-based information to aid in preparing for and responding to climate-related impacts, the agency said. It is not just fisherman, coastal communities that depend on tourism, and other impacts on people and businesses that are the subject of the draft action plan, the agency noted. Ocean warming and acidification are also affecting species protected under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, including corals, sea turtles, whales and salmon, among many others.
Idaho ag director goes East to critique feds’ role in West. Capital Press. Idaho’s agriculture director, Celia Gould, told a House subcommittee Tuesday that distant federal agencies frequently foil Western states by issuing top-down orders, undermining carefully crafted homegrown policies. For example, Gould said Idaho included state-based Bureau of Land Management officials in painstakingly developing a plan to protect greater sage grouse. Idaho’s plan and those in other states convinced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to not list sage grouse as a federally protected species across 11 Western states. Nevertheless, BLM adopted more land-use rules to protect sage grouse. “What began as collaboration ended with the unilateral decision from a federal agency that fundamentally changed the plan and turned supporters into adversaries,” she said.
Getting agency information ‘like pulling teeth’ – GOP lawmaker. E&E News (sub req’d). The Interior Department has cherry-picked scientific data to support its political agenda and has too often failed to fully disclose that information to the public, Republicans and energy industry advocates argued at a House Natural Resources panel hearing yesterday. Peter Seidel, director of marine acquisition for TGS, a seismic data firm seeking to explore in the Atlantic, said Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had set “unrealistic mitigation measures” for seismic exploration “based on inaccurately presumed effects.” It closed certain waters to protect migrating endangered right whales, imposed mandatory acoustic monitoring and expanded shutdown protocols for when whales or dolphins swim near survey vessels.
