Rules aim to protect sage grouse habitat in 10 states

Staff and wire report

While even some Republicans including Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead supported a new U.S. Interior Department plan to preserve sage grouse habitat, some Montanans including Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock aren't quite as happy with the plans.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell revealed plans Thursday to preserve habitat in 10 Western states, including Montana, for the imperiled ground-dwelling bird, the federal government's biggest land-planning effort to date for conservation of a single species.

Sage grouse are chicken-sized birds that inhabit grass and sagebrush ecosystems in 11 states from California to the Dakotas. The rules would not apply to a relatively small area of habitat in Washington state. The bird's numbers have declined sharply in recent decades, and some environmentalists warn they are at risk of extinction.

Gov. Steve Bullock said in a statement sent to the Havre Daily News this morning that he is not happy with the plans - Bullock has implemented a Montana initiative to preserve the bird's environment - but that he will work with them.

"Unfortunately, BLM's proposal would put unnecessary restrictions in place - provisions that would not improve sage grouse management," Bullock said. "While today's announcement by BLM is disappointing, I remain fully committed to constructively working with them and other stakeholders to improve their plan and prevent the listing of this bird under the Endangered Species Act."

Montana's Republican members of Congress were not so kind.

"We can't protect the greater sage-grouse in a checkerboard-like fashion - after all, the bird can't tell the difference between federal, state and private lands," Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said Thursday in a press release. "I have serious concerns that the Obama administration's land-use plans will have a detrimental impact on Montana's economy, our land users and Montanans' way of life.

"It's the people of Montana, not federal bureaucrats from Washington, D.C., who know best how to manage our state's resources, land and wildlife" Daines added. "The Obama administration should implement Montana's plan, which best addresses our state's unique needs and can protect the greater sage-grouse, rather than forcing another Washington-driven, one-size-fits-none policy on Montanans."

Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., also attacked the plans.

"Once again the Obama Administration is undermining the authority of sovereign states to manage our own land, resources, and wildlife with one of their signature 'Washington knows best' plans," Zinke said Thursday in a release. "In Montana alone, the BLM is flexing its bureaucratic muscle over an area nearly the size of the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts combined in order to conserve populations of a bird that they admit they don't even know what a healthy population would be.

"I support a state-based plan that gives local stakeholders a seat at the table" Zinke added. "From ObamaCare to the EPA's anti-coal rules, to waters of the U.S., it is clear the people of Montana cannot trust the administration to act in our state's best interest. The era of Washington knows best has to end now."

Zinke asked Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze March 24 during a House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Federal Lands how many sage grouse would constitute a healthy population.

"I'm not aware that there is a specific number," a transcript of the hearing says Kornze replied. "The Fish and Wildlife Service may have one in mind, but at the Bureau of Land Management our domain is more the habitat that we manage; making sure that the quality of that habitat is good enough to support the populations and hopefully reverse the decline in population that we've seen in recent decades."

Chris Saeger, director of the Western Values Project, took issue with Zinke's statements Thursday.

"Congressman Zinke's read on these plans is a bit of a headscratcher given his recent, and laudable, opposition to the transfer of public lands," Saeger said in a press release. "His statement today reads like it was written by the same folks who want to steal America's public lands for private gain.

"The fact is that these plans are based largely on the needs of specific locations and sage grouse populations, and the economies they support," Sager added. "They're how landscape conservation should work, from the bottom up. So it's a little troubling to see Congressman Zinke's support for a plan hatched by out of state activists to hand management of public land over to the state rather than work with public land managers to achieve the goal of keeping sage grouse off of the endangered species list."

The Havre Daily had not received a response to requests for comment by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., by printing deadline this morning.

The proposal would affect energy development. The regulations would require oil and gas wells to be clustered in groups of a half-dozen or more to avoid scattering them across habitat of the greater sage grouse. Drilling near breeding areas would be prohibited during mating season, and power lines would be moved away from prime habitat to avoid serving as perches for raptors that eat sage grouse.

Some will say the plans don't go far enough to protect the bird, Jewell said.

"But I would say these plans are grounded in sound science - the best available science," she said at a news conference on a ranch near Cheyenne.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service faces a court-ordered deadline of Sept. 30 to decide whether the greater sage grouse needs protection as a threatened or endangered species. Many Western lawmakers and representatives of the oil-and-gas and agriculture industries say a threatened or endangered listing would devastate the region's economy.

Congress voted late last year to withhold funding to implement any listing until September 2016. Other measures pending before U.S. lawmakers aim to postpone any federal listing for five years or more as states develop their own plans for conserving habitat.

Republicans in Congress criticized the plans as federal overreach.

"This is just flat out wrong," said U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. "The state plans work. This proposal is only about controlling land, not saving the bird."

But Wyoming shows that sage grouse and energy development can co-exist, Jewell said. It is a top oil, natural gas and coal producer with a sage grouse conservation strategy being copied by other states and the federal government.

"There is no future for our economy if we don't take care of the sage grouse," said Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican who took part in the announcement. "That's a fact. Some like it, some don't."

Several environmental groups welcomed the plans.

"The sage grouse's listing under the Endangered Species Act is an outcome from which no one stands to gain, least of all public lands sportsmen," said Land Tawney, executive director of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

In what some environmentalists view as an accommodation to industry, the rules would not seek to block development across sage grouse habitat. The government still intends to honor valid and existing rights to develop resources on that land, the Interior Department said.

Even so, the Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based petroleum industry advocacy group, pledged to support the federal legislation to postpone any sage grouse listing.

"The economic impact of sage-grouse restrictions on just the oil and natural gas industry will be between 9,170 and 18,250 jobs and $2.4 billion to $4.8 billion of annual economic impact across Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming," said Kathleen Sgamma, the alliance's vice president of government and public affairs.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management expects to adopt the new measures by late summer. They would apply to federal lands in California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

Federally identified habitat for the greater sage grouse across the Western U.S. totals an area about the size of Colorado. The Interior Department has classified about two-thirds of that range as priority habitat, including areas that could have restrictions on development.

Restrictions would vary between states. Wyoming, with as many as 500,000 greater sage grouse, is home to more of the birds than any other state by far.