American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2016 - 18

IndustryDigest
April, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture announced a three-year
conservation strategy to voluntarily
restore 500,000 acres of LPC habitat. ❒

WEA And NDPC Sue
To Stop Sage Grouse
Land-Use Plan RODs
DENVER-The Western Energy
Alliance and the North Dakota
Petroleum Council filed a lawsuit May
12 in the U.S. District Court for the
District of North Dakota, challenging
four records of decision signed in
September by Interior Secretary Sally
Jewell and Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack. The RODs implemented landuse plans announced by DOI in May to
protect sage grouse habitat in
California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana,
Nevada, North Dakota and Utah, the
Alliance points out.
The land-use plans focus sage grouse
protection on minimizing surface
disturbance utilizing a tiered approach
that stipulates different levels of
restrictions based on the quality of the
sage grouse habitat (AOGR, July 2015,
pg. 167). Where oil and gas activity is
allowed, the plans create buffers around
sage grouse leks and require mitigation
for impacts to habitat that "provides a
net conservation gain to the species."
WEA Vice President of Government
and Public Affairs Kathleen Sgamma
says the Alliance and NDPC are
challenging the land-use plans because
they fail to conform to state plans
already implemented to protect sage
grouse habitat. Under those plans, she
says oil and gas companies
implemented "more than 770 specific
protections for sage grouse while
reducing impact on the land by 70
percent."
Sgamma cites the Western
Association of Fish & Wildlife
Agencies' 2015 population update,
which shows the sage grouse population
increased 63 percent during the
previous two years.
"Local and state efforts tailored to
actual conditions are effectively
protecting the sage grouse and its
habitat," Sgamma declares. "Despite that
success, the federal government has
imposed top-down, centralized plans that
are less effective . . . and will needlessly
kill jobs and economic growth."
18 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

She says an economic analysis
shows the federal land-use plans could
cost as many as 31,000 jobs and $5.6
billion in annual economic activity,
including 9,267 jobs and nearly $2.5
billion in economic activity from lost oil
and gas development.
Bret Sumner, a shareholder with
Beatty & Wozniak in Denver and lead
attorney in the case, says the
associations' complaint is narrowly
targeted at key procedural violations
related to promulgating and imposing
habitat designations, and the related
restrictions and prohibitions on oil and
gas leasing and development.
The lawsuit, which names DOI, the
Bureau of Land Management,
Department of Agriculture and the U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service as well as the
heads of those agencies as defendants,
sets out 10 causes of action. Among
them, it alleges the defendants failed to
conduct formal rule makings under the
Administrative Procedures Act relating
to the RODs' stipulations regarding:
* Exceptions, waivers and
modifications;
* Compensatory mitigation;
* "Net conservation gain"
mitigation standard; and
* Lek buffer distances, timing
limitations, and noise buffers.
The associations' lawsuit also
challenges exemptions granted certain
renewable electricity transmission
projects, even though the impacts from
those projects "still will count against
surface disturbance restrictions
applicable to oil and gas development."
The lawsuit contends the defendants
failed to take a "hard look" at the
cumulative impacts of those exempted
transmission projects, as well as the
socioeconomic and cumulative impacts
of the RODs in general, and that the
RODs improperly cede BLM authority
over oil and gas operations to USFWS.
"By ignoring sound science, the
agencies are exaggerating the impact of
oil and natural gas development on sage
grouse, and are failing to recognize that
oil and gas development coexists with
sage grouse conservation," Sgamma
states. "The draconian measures go well
beyond reasonable mitigation of impact.
We are disappointed BLM and the
Forest Service persist with top-down,
centralized management that
discourages more effective (state and
local) efforts." ❒

No Critical Habitat Is
Designated For NLEB
WASHINGTON-The U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service has announced it will
not designate critical habitat for the
northern long-eared bat.
"Given the nature of the primary
threats facing the species and the
potential harm of publishing its
hibernation locations, USFWS has
determined designating critical habitat
is not prudent," the agency stated in late
April.
It adds that the determination does
not affect the bat's threatened status
under the Endangered Species Act.
Noting that designating critical
habitat requires identifying specific
tracts, USFWS says pointing out the
mines and caves in which the bat
hibernates in the winter "would increase
the risk of vandalism and disturbance,"
and "could hasten the spread of whitenose syndrome," which the agency says
is the primary threat to the species.
Because the northern long-eared bat
uses a wide variety of forested areas in
summer to find food and raise its
young, and is highly flexible in how it
meets those needs, USFWS says it
decided "there are no specific habitat
features essential to its conservation. In
addition, the bat's summer habitat is not
limited or in short supply, habitat is not
a predominant threat, and there are no
areas that meet the definition of critical
habitat."
USFWS's determination was
published in the April 27 Federal
Register. ❒

Federal Agencies Unveil
Proposed Revisions To
CCAA Policy Deﬁnitions
WASHINGTON-The U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's National Marine
Fisheries Service are considering
revising the Endangered Species Act's
candidate conservation agreements with
assurances (CCAA) policy. The
proposal was published in the Federal
Register on May 4.
The agencies say possible changes
include adding a definition of "net
conservation benefit" and eliminating
references to the requirements of "other
American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2016

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