Natural Resources Today

House GOP shows signs it wants to attack Endangered Species Act again

2012-01-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

A House committee hearing in early December may indicate that the Republican-dominated lower chamber of Congress may plan an assault on the Endangered Species Act.

At the hearing, which was held Dec. 6, Natural Resources Committee chairman Doc Hastings, R-Washington, argued that the Endangered Species Act is not effectively working as a tool to recover vulnerable species to a sustainable population size because it allows concerned citizens and organizations too much access to the courts.

“The purpose of the ESA is to recover endangered species – yet this is where the current law is failing – and failing badly," Hastings said. "In my opinion, one of the greatest obstacles to the success of the ESA is the way in which it has become a tool for excessive litigation. Instead of focusing on recovering endangered species, there are groups that use the ESA as a way to bring lawsuits against the government and block job-creating projects.”

The Republican caucus in the House last tried to force through major changes to the ESA while the party had the majority in both chambers between 1995-2007. However, one of the party's leading advocates of weakening the law, Richard Pombo of California, was defeated in his 2006 reelection bid.

The committee indicated in a press release that the oversight hearing was the first in a planned series aimed at taking a "fair look at the ways in which the ESA is working well and areas where it could be improved and updated."

DC Circuit blocks cross-state air pollution rule

2012-01-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

An EPA regulation aimed at limiting emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from power plants in 27 states was blocked Friday by a federal appeals court.

The transport rule, as the regulation is formally known, is the subject of at least three dozen lawsuits filed by electric utilities, other industrial interests, a labor union, and the state of Texas.

The petitioners main argument against the regulation is that it allows them too little time to comply with expensive requirements to come into compliance with pollution limits. They also argue that the cross-state pollution rule unlawfully permits EPA to impose emission limits before the states have had the opportunity to do so.

The latter argument is based on language in the Clean Air Act that seems to limit the use of a federal implementation plan (the acronym for a U.S. government program to limit air pollution with a particular state) to situations where a state has not come up with its own plan or the state's plan is inconsistent with the requirements of the federal air pollution law.

The rule would permit polluters to obtain allowances by purchasing them from competitors, but the opponents of the transport rule have urged the District of Columbia-based appeals court to find that the financial expense necessary to gain such permission to pollute would be too great of a harm to utilities.

Aimed at facilities that produce pollutants that travel in the atmosphere across state lines, the rule would likely force the closure of some older, coal-fired power plants. If implemented, it would force violators to switch to fuels that pollute less, such as natural gas, or install control technology.

“Petitioners have satisfied the standards required for a stay pending court review,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit judges Brett Kavanaugh, Thomas Griffith and Janice Rogers Brown said in a terse order.

The court's action does not permanently block implementation of the cross-state emissions rule. Instead, it prevents EPA from enforcing it until the compatibility of the rule with federal statutory law is determined.

Oral arguments on the petitions for review of the rule have not been scheduled, but the order released Friday indicates that the court may hear them by April.

Sulfur dioxide is a pollutant that leads to acid precipitation and harmful soot, while nitrogen oxide is a central component of smog and a large contributor to ground-level ozone.

EPA says that the cross-state pollution rule would help to prevent an estimated 13,000-34,000 premature deaths annually by 2014 and reduce hospital and emergency room visits by 19,000 per year.

Coal incineration for electricity production is the source of 98 percent of sulfur dioxide air pollution and 92 percent of nitrogen oxide air pollution released by power plants, according to EPA.

Among states, Texas is the largest consumer of electricity and most of that electricity is produced by burning coal. The state's per capital electricity use is also significantly higher than the national average.

Even if the challengers to the cross-state pollution rule prevail, and EPA is forced to re-draft the rule, power plant operators will likely face the necessity of investing in additional or improved pollution control technology due to a recently-finalized rule limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants.

That regulation was finalized in December and will go into effect in 2015.

Brown, Griffith, and Kavanagh were appointed to the Washington, D.C.-based appeals court, which is often assigned by statute to hear challenges to the legality of federal regulations, by former President (and Texas governor) George W. Bush.

The case is EME Homer City Generation LP v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 11-1302.

Federal judge blocks California greenhouse gas regulations

2012-01-01T00:27:00.000-08:00

A federal judge in Fresno ruled Thursday that a California regulation aimed at forcing producers of gasoline and diesel fuel to lower the carbon dioxide pollution in those fuels over the next decade violates the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Lawrence O'Neill of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California held that the Low Carbon Fuel Standard violates the commerce clause, which forbids states from discriminating against economic actors outside their borders or placing an excessive burden on entities engaged in interstate economic activity.

The regulation "discriminates against out-of-state corn-derived ethanol while favoring in-state corn ethanol and impermissibly regulates extraterritorial conduct," O'Neill wrote in granting a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the California Air Resources Board regulation.

O'Neill's opinion also indicated, but did not hold, that the regulation may be preempted by federal law.

This element of O'Neill's analysis has the potential to the most far-reaching. If adopted as part of a ruling on the merits by an appeals court, it would likely severely constrain the ability of California and other states to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.

The particular federal laws O'Neill cited as occupying the legal field of regulating fuels are the Clean Air Act and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2006.

Proponents of the regulation obtained permission to appeal the ruling immediately.

CNN: House of Representatives on verge of passing bill that eases regulatory burdens to Arctic oil drilling

2011-06-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Republican House of Representatives is ready to pass a bill that would lower regulatory barriers to Arctic oil drilling, according to a CNN report.

The measure, which is sponsored by a freshman congressman from Colorado, would limit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's authority to review exploration permits for activities on the nation's Outer Continental Shelf.

Technically, the bill would accomplish that goal by, first, requiring that the Clean Air Act apply to drilling vessels in the same way that it applies to land-based stationary sources and, second, by removing the authority of EPA's Environmental Appeals Board to review permit decisions by the agency.

Proponents of the legislation, including House speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, argue that the bill's enactment into law is an essential component of efforts to increase domestic energy security.

Environmentalists, on the other hand, assert that the potential damage from a marine oil spill in frigid Arctic waters compels caution.

“An oil spill in these remote and icy waters would have catastrophic impacts and be nearly impossible to clean up; no technology exists that would effectively clean up oil spilled in icy Arctic waters," Erik Grafe, an attorney for Earthjustice, said in testimony about the bill before a House committee.

HR 2021, labeled the "Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011" by its sponsor, Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., would not be limited in impact to Alaska. It covers all areas of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.

In May the GOP-controlled House, with help from some Democratic members, passed a measure that would impose time limits on the U.S. Department of Interior's consideration of offshore drilling permit applications.

The House has also cleared proposed legislation that would open up more areas of the nation's coasts for oil drilling.

Gore says Obama is blowing off threat of climate change

2011-06-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

Former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. has some harsh words for President Obama when it comes to climate change.

Gore, who has become a leading voice in support of efforts to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions since his political career ended, has published an essay in Rolling Stone that accuses Obama of ignoring the problem.

"He has simply not made the case for action," Gore wrote. "He has not defended the science against the ongoing, withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community — including our own National Academy — to bring the reality of the science before the public.”

The Rolling Stone essay also attacks corporate America for its resistance to legislative and regulatory efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which are warming Earth's atmosphere, as well as Republicans, the U.S. Senate, and the news media.

Industry has, by and large, fought efforts to limit the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and some companies have helped to finance efforts to convince Americans to doubt scientific research indicating that human activities are changing the climate.

Republicans in Congress and many statehouses have been insistent deniers of the human impact on the climate, while the Senate took no action on a landmark climate change bill during the last Congress.

Gore's argument against the news media is that it has not generally attempted to educate Americans about the scientific reality of climate change and the extensive evidence that human activities are causing it.

The former vice president, who also served in Congress for 24 years and has written several acclaimed books about the environment, won a Nobel peace prize for his advocacy on behalf of efforts to confront climate change.

U.S. Supreme Court: No common law climate change lawsuits allowed

2011-06-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Supreme Court has put the kibosh on an effort to invoke the common law to force greenhouse gas emission reductions.

In a decision issued Monday, the high court ruled that the enactment of the Clean Air Act into law gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, not the courts, the power to limit greenhouse gas pollution of the atmosphere and precludes plaintiffs from invoking the old doctrine of nuisance to respond to climate change.

"The critical point is that Congress delegated to EPA the decision whether and how to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants; the delegation is what displaces federal common law," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a unanimous opinion.

The plaintiffs, which include several states, New York City, and a number of private land-trusts, argued that four private utilities and the Tennessee Valley Authority created a nuisance by emitting 650 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

That collective emission of carbon dioxide is equivalent to ten percent of the total annual domestic carbon dioxide pollution in the United States and about 2.5 percent of the total human-caused emission of carbon dioxide worldwide.

The complaints filed in the case alleged that the emissions violate either the federal common law of public nuisance or a similar doctrine existing in state law. The basis of the claims was that the defendants' emissions would harm the environment and human health.

They asked a federal district court to impose a ceiling on the entities' emissions, which would get tighter in successive years.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had dismissed the complaints on grounds that the issues raised in them are "political questions" beyond the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed that decision.

Ginsburg's opinion discussed a technical area of jurisprudence arising from the need to allow the development of some federal common law. However, all of the participating justices agreed that this doctrine was of no help to the plaintiffs because Congress spoke directly to the issue at the heart of their case when it enacted the Clean Air Act.

“When Congress addresses a question previously governed by a decision rested on federal common law, the need for such an unusual exercise of law-making by federal courts disappears,” the Court said.

The Court, in a 2007 decision called Massachusetts v. EPA, has already held that the Clean Air Act authorizes the federal government to impose regulations that limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, other industrial sources, and motor vehicles.

The Obama administration has been moving to use that authority.

In 2010 EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation finalized rules that limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants from some motor vehicles. EPA is expected to issue a proposed regulation limiting such emissions from fossil fuel-burning power plants next month.

Justice Ginsburg's opinion did not address the defendants' argument that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuits against them. In Massachusetts v. EPA the Court had ruled that states have standing to force EPA to use the regulatory authority granted the agency by federal statute.

She wrote, however, that the Court divided 4-4 on this question. Under the rules of the Supreme Court, a tie vote on any issue in dispute means that the lower court's decision on the point is affirmed.

It is likely, however, that Justice Elena Kagan, who did not participate in the case, would have voted in favor of standing for at least some of the plaintiffs.

The justices also split on the question whether the "political question" doctrine barred federal courts from deciding cases raising common law arguments against environmental harms.

The case is American Electric Power Co., et al., v. Connecticut, et al., No. 10-174.

Transocean says 2010 Gulf oil spill is BP's fault

2011-06-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

The owner of the well that spewed oil across the Gulf of Mexico last year says the accident was BP's fault.

Transocean Ltd., in an investigative report released today, said that the British oil company caused the blowout of the Macondo Well and Deepwater Horizon drilling rig because its decisions increased the risk of a catastrophic failure.

"The Macondo incident was the result of a succession of interrelated well design, construction, and temporary abandonment decisions that compromised the integrity of the well and compounded the risk of its failure," Transocean said in the executive summary of the report. "The decisions, many made by the operator, BP, in the two weeks leading up to the incident, were driven by BP’s knowledge that the geological window for safe drilling was becoming increasingly narrow."

BP's own report, which was released last September, blamed Transocean and Halliburton, which did contracting work on the construction of the well, for the disaster.

The federal government has cast blame on all three companies involved in operating the rig.

The Deepwater Horizon incident led to an 87 day-long release of oil into the sea.

As a result of the oil spill, the United States has sued BP, Transocean, and several other entities for violations of the Clean Water Act and restitution under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

The litigation is pending in federal court in New Orleans.

Multiple private lawsuits are also pending.

California congressman urges global clearcutting of forests as way to fight climate change

2011-05-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

A Republican congressman urged the State Department to look into subsidizing clear-cutting of forests around the world as a mechanism to fight climate change.

The suggestion by U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., came Wednesday during an oversight hearing conducted by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rainforests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?" Rohrabacher asked Todd Stern, the Obama administration's special envoy for climate change. "Or would people be supportive of cutting down older trees in order to plant younger trees as a means to prevent this disaster from happening?"

The proposal, if carried out, would actually exacerbate the warming of Earth's atmosphere because trees absorb huge quantities of carbon dioxide.

Stern pointed out that climate change policies around the planet focus on retaining forests for that reason.

Rohrabacher argued that nature is primarily responsible for climate change.

The continued warming of Earth's atmosphere is actually caused by the greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities.

Obama's speech to British parliament does not focus on climate change

2011-05-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama's speech to the British parliament Wednesday made mention of climate change, but did not focus on the issue.

Obama emphasized that the continuing build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere poses "dangers" and appeared to chastise China and India for being unwilling to commit to emission reductions.

"The successes and failures of our own past can serve as an example for emerging economies: that it's possible to grow without polluting, that lasting prosperity comes not from what a nation consumes, but from what it produces and from the investments it makes in its people and its infrastructure," Obama said to members of the House of Commons and House of Lords.

The administration has appeared to reduce the priority it gave to efforts to lower American greenhouse gas emissions since a greenhouse gas emissions bill died in Congress in 2010.

The Environmental Protection Agency has also recently backed off on several proposals to increase regulation of air pollution, control mountaintop removal mining, and set rules for the storage of coal ash.

Official White House photo of President Barack Obama speaking at Westminster Hall in London, May 25, 2011, by Pete Souza.

New Jersey to withdraw from regional climate change compact

2011-05-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

New Jersey will withdraw from the ten-state regional compact set up by northeastern states to coordinate greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Gov. Christopher Christie announced Thursday that he would pull the Garden State out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative by the end of the year.

Christie labeled the RGGI a "failure" during a Trenton news conference.

However, a statement by the nine remaining members indicated that Christie's decision will not affect the compact's ongoing activities.

"With each state exercising its independent authority to achieve low-cost greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the RGGI market-based program has widespread support across the region and will continue," the statement said.

The member states of the RGGI aim to lower greenhouse gas emissions within their borders by ten percent by 2018. To do so, each state limits emissions from electric power plants. Regulated entities can purchase permission to pollute through auctions, with regulated entities in the region able to take advantage of pollution allowances made available in any of the member states.

Funds generated through the emission allowance auctions are used to fund clean energy projects. As of February about $860 million had been invested in these programs.

The RGGI's cap-and-trade program was the first market-based mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the country.

New Hampshire, another of the RGGI's members, experienced earlier this year an effort by legislative Republicans to force the state's withdrawal from the compact. The attempt was blocked in the state senate.

New Jersey has been a member since 2008.

U.S. Commerce Dep't IG clears NOAA scientists of Inhofe fraud claims

2011-02-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

A federal government investigator has rejected a powerful U.S. senator's claim that National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration scientists may have fabricated data to support the agency's case that climate change is ongoing.

Inhofe's allegation arose from his interpretation of email sent to and from scientists at East Anglia University's Climatic Research Unit. Many skeptics of the scientific consensus that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases are causing Earth's atmosphere to warm have raised a similar charge.

"In our review of the CRU emails, we did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data comprising the GHCN-M dataset or failed to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures," U.S. Department of Commerce inspector general Todd J. Zinser wrote in a Feb. 18 letter to Inhofe that was released to the public Thursday.

Zinser was referring to the Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly dataset, which is maintained by NOAA's National Climactic Data Center.

He also concluded that NOAA adhered to appropriate peer review procedures before releasing the historical climate change data about which Inhofe expressed concern.

The e-mails Zinser investigated were among 1,073 stolen and leaked to the public in Nov. 2009. Zinser and his team of investigators examined all of those emails but focused their attention on 289 that involved NOAA in some manner.

The inspector general's staff conducted a more detailed investigation of eight particular e-mails that were the principal source of Inhofe's expression of concern.

One of those eight e-mails, which was sent by CRU's deputy director, asked colleagues not to "let [the Co-Chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report Working Group 1] (or [a researcher at Pennsylvania State University]) push you (us) beyond where we know is right." The sender was referring to "conclusions beyond what we can securely justify."

The sender told Zinser's investigators that the purpose of this email was to encourage scientists working on the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report were assuring a clear statement about the factual support for the conclusions they provided in that report they wrote.

Another involving a 2007 exchange between a group of scientists not employed by NOAA that mentioned values on a climate data curve being "shifted" was found by Zinser to reflect the scientists' adherence to a long-established procedure used to compensate for missing data.

The third, which related to a controversy relating to the extent of urban heat islands in China, had involved the NCDC director. Zinser concluded that he had not contributed the Chinese climate data at the center of the dispute, had not analyzed that data despite being a contributor to a 1990 academic article that critics thought had reached an erroneous conclusion about the impacts of climate change on Chinese metropolitan areas, and had, in a manner consistent with general practice in scientific fields of inquiry, worked only on his section of that paper.

The fourth email to which Inhofe pointed as possible evidence of fraud by NOAA scientists was sent by the CRU deputy director to a researcher at Pennsylvania State University. That email, which was sent Apr. 29, 2007, said that the writer was "particularly unhappy" that he could not get a "statement" relating to reinforcement of results obtained during the IPCC's Third Assessment Report into the Summary for Policymakers section of the Fourth Assessment Report.

The CRU deputy director said he had done his "best" to get the information included in the Fourth Assessment Report, but had been "basically railroaded" by the co-chair of Working Group 1.

Zinser concluded that the information that the CRU deputy director wanted to have included in the Fourth Assessment Report was not included because the co-chair of Working Group 1 decided that the report would have greater clarity about the "similarities and differences" between the Third Assessment Report and the Fourth Assessment Report. Since the Third Assessment Report's publication some research had indicated that there was a greater than anticipated historical variability in Northern Hemisphere temperatures.

Inhofe had also pointed to a fifth email, written by a university researcher to an NOAA scientist, asking that earlier emails showing that researcher's participation in the development of the Fourth Assessment Report be deleted.

Zinser found that the emails referenced in the researcher's message were deleted by the NOAA scientist, but that the NOAA scientist had received the request before he commenced government service and, therefore, no agency records retention policies had been violated.

A sixth email at issue related to a Freedom of Information Act request for NOAA data used to compile a temperature trend report contained in a 2008 academic article. NOAA had informed the requester that it did not have the information sought, but in fact CRU researchers may have had such data.

Zinser concluded that the particular data the requester had sought was never in the hands of any NOAA scientists and that the data that the CRU researchers in fact had was not the data that had been requested.

A seventh email referred to "quality control procedures" applied by NOAA on temperature data after it is collected by GHCN, instead of at the time the data is reported to the agency.

Zinser found that this method is justified as a means for the NOAA to take account of new information contained in late reports and that, in any event, it will be less essential after the agency deploys improvements to GHCN-M.

Finally, Zinser's investigators found that an Oct. 6, 2009 email referring to "data gaps" in NCDC's database, as compared to those maintained by CRU and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, referred to the separate collection of land and sea temperature data by NCDC or the omission of non-public data pursuant to NOAA policy. GISS researchers interpolate ocean data into a land temperature database, and vice versa, and both that agency and CRU may not have policies requiring the exclusion of proprietary data from their databases.

The report by the Commerce Department's inspector general is at least the sixth to conclude that the scientists who sent or received the 1,073 leaked emails did not engage in any improper behavior. There have been three inquiries in Britain and two in the United States, by the National Research Council and Pennsylvania State University.

Zinser's review and further investigation of two other emails did prompt some mild criticism of NOAA on grounds having nothing to do with adherence to proper research techniques or scientific methodology.

His report to Inhofe indicated that NOAA had improperly handled four requests for information under FOIA by failing to assure that individual scientists working for the agency were made aware of them. One other scientist who had been aware of the FOIA requests incorrectly concluded that the information they sought was the property of the IPCC.

Zinser suggested that NOAA review the CRU's compliance with the terms of two contracts awarded in 2002 and 2003 to conduct training on the impacts of the periodic La Nina and El Nino events. The total value of those contracts was $66,240.

The inspector general also criticized one e-mail message, sent by a senior NCDC scientist to a CRU colleague, that contained an "inappropriate image."

The image was a caricature of Inhofe, created by another NCDC scientist, in which the Oklahoma Republican was shown, along with several other famous climate change skeptics, atop an ice floe in the Arctic ocean. The second scientist created the cartoon on his government-issued computer during work hours.

Zinser reported that NOAA has disciplined the two scientists.

Obama administration: No endangered status unless species nearly extinct in wild, and polar bear doesn't qualify

2011-02-23T19:56:00.001-08:00

The Obama administration told a federal judge in Washington, D.C. Wednesday that a species may be considered "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act only if it is on the very precipice of disappearing from its native habitat.

Because the polar bear isn't that close to extinction, a government lawyer said, its status as a threatened species should stand.

The argument came in a hearing held on a challenge to the administration's decision to stick with the George W. Bush administration's 2008 designation of the polar bear's status under the ESA.

Listing the polar bear as "threatened" does not require the administration to protect its habitat from adverse impacts, whether from oil drilling or climate change. An "endangered" listing would impose that duty on the government.

Judge Emmet Sullivan seemed to indicate that he was not certain whether the courts have any statutory authority to force the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to do more for the polar bear.

Kassie Siegel, a lawyer representing environmental groups that are challenging the threatened listing, bluntly told the veteran jurist that the only way to save the polar bear is to require "deep and rapid greenhouse gas reductions."

However, the regulation that creates the dichotomy in the treatment of a listed species' habitat appears to stand in the way of such a mandate from a federal judge.

The rule, which former interior secretary Dirk Kempthorne issued on the same day he announced the polar bear's listing as a threatened species, aims to prevent the ESA from being used as a tool to force a lowering of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

President Obama's secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, has not attempted to revise or revoke it.

The environmental group plaintiffs maintain that, because the sea ice upon which polar bears depend for hunting is expected to continue disappearing, the species must be considered endangered.

Sea ice in the Arctic, which is essential habitat for the polar bear during the summer months, is being lost as Earth's atmosphere warms. The National Snow and Ice Data Center has reported that the rate of melt is increasing during every month of the year.

Elements of industry and the state of Alaska argue that the polar bear does not merit even a threatened species designation. They do not dispute that the sea ice habitat upon which polar bears depend is disappearing, but maintain that its loss does not necessarily mean that the species will go extinct.

Washington, on the other hand, seemed to take the position that the listing provisions of the ESA is not the critical mechanism available in an effort to save the polar bear.

Clifford Stevens, the government lawyer representing the Fish and Wildlife Service in the case, told Sullivan that the recent critical habitat designation is the tool upon which the administration will principally rely.

Photo courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

High Country News article investigates Alaska's extensive predator control programs

2011-02-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

The High Country News published in its Feb. 21 issue an insightful article exploring Alaska's ongoing and pervasive efforts to limit mammalian predator populations.

The article, by Tracy Ross, is worth a read.

U.S. Supreme Court denies certiorari in case upholding spotted owl critical habitat

2011-02-22T20:03:00.001-08:00

The U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped Tuesday an opportunity to review a lower court decision that upheld the designation of millions of acres of land as critical habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl.

The denial of a petition for certiorari came in a case filed by cattle ranchers in the southwest.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in June 2010 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had provided a valid economic analysis in support of the designation and did not violate the Endangered Species Act by including in the designation land that did not contain any owls.

In general, the ESA requires USFWS to designate critical habitat for a listed species at the time of listing.

In the case of the Mexican spotted owl, the administration of former President George W. Bush designated 8.6 million acres in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah as critical habitat in 2004.

The species was added to the list of threatened and endangered species in 1993. A previous critical habitat designation by the Clinton administration was withdrawn in 1998.

The Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) is the smallest of the spotted owl species, which include the California spotted owl and the northern spotted owl. The species lives in old growth forests in mountains and canyons located in a range extending from southern Utah and Colorado through Arizona and New Mexico and into west Texas and northern and central Mexico.

A predatory animal, Mexican spotted owls are nocturnal. Climate change is the most significant risk to their forest habitat.

The case is Arizona Cattle Growers Association v. Salazar.

Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

House budget resolution includes cuts to many environmental programs

2011-02-20T15:18:00.000-08:00

The U.S. House of Representatives passed early Saturday a landmark resolution that would impose the largest rescissions of appropriated spending on federal agencies in decades. Included in the targets for budget cuts are a variety of programs related to environmental law and policy.

According to the Washington Post, the Environmental Protection Agency was the target of a number of amendments aimed at limiting the agency's ability to enforce regulations or create new ones.

EPA would, if the relevant provisions of the resolution are adopted by the Senate and President Obama signs the final resolution, be forbidden to regulate greenhouse gases.

A 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision required EPA to determine whether carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas emitted to the atmosphere by motor vehicles, factories, and power plants, is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. If so, that law mandates that EPA limit its emissions.

Last year EPA issued a regulation that would cap CO2 emissions by the largest industrial sources.

The budget resolution would also deprive the agency of more than $8 million currently available to fund its greenhouse gas registry. That cut would be in addition to another $5 million reduction for this year already proposed by the majority party in the House of Representatives.

The registry does not force emitters of carbon dioxide, methane, and other industrial greenhouse gases to limit those emissions. Originally created by rule in October 2009, it requires emitters to report to EPA the amount of greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere above a specified threshold.

EPA would also be barred from spending money to grant waivers of requirements relating to the ethanol content of gasoline and be forbidden to spend money needed to revoke a Clean Water Act permit.

Other adopted amendments to the budget resolution would forbid any EPA efforts to regulate fossil fuel combustion waste, prevent the expenditure of money needed to modify the national ambient air quality standard applicable to course particulates, enforce a Clean Air Act regulation that limits cement plant emissions, and develop or implement surface mining and reclamation guidelines.

In addition, EPA would not be permitted to spend money to implement revised water quality standards in Florida and the agency's Environmental Appeals Board would be barred from spending money to decide whether air pollution permits have been properly granted to companies seeking to drill for oil off Alaska's Arctic coast.

Other agencies with environment-related missions are not spared, but the budget hits they would take are significant less than those aimed at EPA.

The Bureau of Reclamation would lose $1.9 million in funding for water and related programs, the Bureau of Land Management would lose $2 million in funds, and the Forest Service would be prohibited from spending money to implement the Travel Management Rule, which limits the use of roads and trails in the National Forest system by off-road vehicles.

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation would not be able to spend money to implement any of its regulations, while the National Atmospheric & Oceanic Administration would be prohibited from spending money to create a Climate Service, as it announced it would in Feb. 2010.

The proposed Climate Service would consolidate NOAA functions related to acquisition of climate data and reporting of that information. The administrative organization would not require the expenditure of any more money on those functions than the agency already spends, according to an information sheet published by NOAA.

NOAA would also lose the ability to regulate fish harvests in four management zones along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

The recently announced agreement to remove several dams on the Klamath River in Oregon would be, at minimum, delayed by the budget resolution.

An amendment adopted during the marathon debate Friday night and early Saturday morning would forbid expenditure of any money needed to study the effects of removing Iron Gate Dam, John C. Boyle Dam, and the Copco No. 1 and No. 2 dams.

That study, which the U.S. government agreed to undertake as part of a settlement of a complex dispute over re-licensing the dams, is to assess the costs and benefits of removal. It is to be completed by Mar. 31, 2012.

If Congress and the voters of California approve removal of one or more of the Klamath River dams, they could be breached by 2020 under the historic 2010 agreements.

Ongoing efforts to clean up the heavily-polluted Chesapeake Bay would also be affected. Another adopted amendment deprives that program of most of its appropriation for this year.

The Obama administration had sought more than $400 million to fund that effort this year. Obama had ordered inter-agency cooperation in the effort in 2009.

Congress' in-house environmental programs would suffer a fiscal blow, as the "Green the Capitol" program would lose $1.5 million, and the White House would not be able to pay a senior advisor focused on climate change and energy.

Even the United Nations would suffer financial losses. The resolution would forbid the U.S. government to expend dollars in support of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The funding resolution proposes to cut more than $60 billion in federal spending this year. It does not attempt to significantly lower spending on entitlement programs or national defense, which are the principal contributors to federal spending.

The federal government's budget deficit for this fiscal year is anticipated to be about $1.6 trillion.

Congress must pass, and President Obama must sign, a funding resolution on or before March 4 if ongoing government operations in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, are to continue.

Feds say there are more Mexican wolves in Ariz., N. Mex.

2011-02-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

The population of Mexican wolf in Arizona and New Mexico is rising, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

There were, at the end of 2010, 50 of the animals in the two states. That's up from 42 at the end of 2009.

Fourteen individuals are pups. At the end of 2009 there were seven wild pups in the region.

The total number of individual Mexican wolves reported by the annual survey is considered a minimum estimate of the population.

It is possible that other individuals that are not collared are roaming the region and were not counted during the fixed-wing aircraft- and helicopter-based census, which relies on telemetry data and actual sightings.

"We are moving forward with our recovery planning effort -- and our strategically planned releases this year -- and staying focused on our goal of having a genetically-viable and sustainable population of wild Mexican wolves in the Southwest," Fish and Wildlife Service Southwest Region director Benjamin Tuggle said in a statement.

Despite the increase in the census of Mexican wolves since the end of 2009, the agency remains far short of the original recovery goal established when the 13 members of the species were re-introduced to the wild in 1998.

At that time the Fish and Wildlife Service said it would achieve a population of 100 individuals, including 18 breeding pairs, by now.

The latest count is also a decline from the population at the end of 2006. At that time there were at least 59 individuals in the region.

Federal wildlife managers also announced that a breeding pair of Mexican wolves has been released into the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area that stretches across the Arizona-New Mexico border.

It is the first release of individuals into the wild since 2008.

Canis lupus baileyi, the smallest gray wolf subspecies on the continent, has been listed as an endangered species since 1976.

The animal was extirpated in the wild by the 1950s. Native to the Sonoran and Chihuahan deserts, it was re-introduced into Arizona in March 1998.

Mexican wolves are bred at 47 facilities around the country. About 340 individuals are known to be alive, both in captivity and in the wild.

A bill pending in the U.S. House of Representatives would prevent the Mexican wolf, as well as other Gray wolves, from continuing to receive the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

The Fish and Wildlife Service terminated in 2009 a policy that had led to the removal from the wild of any Mexican wolf involved in the killing of three livestock animals.

Natural Resources Today nominated as one of Lexis-Nexis "Top 50" blogs

2011-02-02T16:57:00.000-08:00

Natural Resources Today is getting some recognition!

This blog has been nominated as one of the Lexis/Nexis Top 50 Blogs in its Environmental Law and Climate Change Community. There are some truly outstanding competitors on that list of nominees, too, and we congratulate all of them.

Your support for Natural Resources Today as one of the Lexis/Nexis Top 50 in the field would be most appreciated. Please visit this site and post a comment by Feb. 14. Later, Lexis/Nexis will put the nominees up for a vote.

Thank you for reading, for your suggestions and ideas, and for supporting us!

Deputy Interior secretary to leave post

2011-01-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

Interior secretary Ken Salazar's chief aide is leaving his job.

Assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks Tom Strickland, who also serves as Salazar's chief of staff, will resign effective sometime in February, according to a report in The Hill.

He will be temporarily replaced as assistant secretary by Will Shafroth, who is currently deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, and as chief of staff by his deputy, Laura Daniel Davis.

Strickland was Colorado's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1996 and 2002. A lawyer, he has been the state's U.S. attorney, a partner in a law firm, and an executive of a health insurance firm.

Salazar told the Denver Post that Strickland's departure is not an indication of any staff shakeup at Interior.

Oklahoma senator says he'll block big public lands, water, and wildlife bill

2010-12-01T21:27:00.000-08:00

The man who describes himself as the Senate's most conservative member said Wednesday that he'll block a huge bill that would expand protections for wilderness, scenic rivers, wildlife, and marine resources.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said in a statement that the provisions in the measure require additional debate and should not be considered during the current lame-duck session of Congress.

"I stand in firm opposition to this package, the contents of which are still uncertain," Inhofe said. "The first step to controlling government spending is for the authorizers to set reasonable and achievable authorization levels. I am perfectly willing to work with my colleagues to advance some of these bills individually, but we need time to examine the changes that have been made since they emerged from the EPW committee, and we must consider their effect on the deficit."

Inhofe was referring to the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, of which he is the ranking minority member.

According to a Nov. 15 report in E&E News, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, planned to ask the chamber to enact a bill that would encompass at least some of 60 natural resources-related measures already approved by Senate committees.

Inhofe's opposition may have been encouraged by the attitude of the ranching industry, which has urged Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to set the omnibus bill aside.

Incoming Speaker Boehner eliminates House global warming committee

2010-12-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

The only Congressional committee exclusively focused on global warming will soon be in the cooler.

A spokesperson for House of Representatives Republican caucus leader John Boehner of Ohio, who is expected to become speaker when the 112th Congress convenes in January, said that the GOP would eliminate the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming.

"We have pledged to save taxpayers' money by reducing waste and duplication in Congress," Michael Steel said in a statement. "The Select Committee on Global Warming was created by Democrats simply to provide political cover to pass their job-killing national energy tax. It is unnecessary, and taxpayers will not have to fund it in the 112th Congress."

The death of the committee will not mean that the chamber cannot consider legislation touching on the issue or investigate the problem.

Before 2007, when the special panel was created, climate change issues were under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Natural Resources.

It is expected that those two panels will regain control over the subject when the new Congress convenes in January.

Nevertheless, the Democratic chair of the select committee lamented its impending death.

"We are not going away because the problems that climate change presents are too dangerous, too urgent, for us to disappear into the abyss of cynicism and lost opportunity," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said. "We are not going away because China and India and Germany are not going away as competitors for global energy dominance. We are not going away because the national security threats from our continued dependence on foreign oil are not going away."

One Republican even had positive things to say about the panel's work during the 110th and 111th Congresses.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., had opposed its creation but said at the committee's last meeting Wednesday that it had been a useful forum to discuss the issue.

"This hearing will be the last of the select committee," he said. "And while I was initially skeptical of the select committee's mission, it ultimately provided a forum for bipartisan debate, and an opportunity for House Republicans to share a different view on the pressing energy and environment issues that we currently face."

The Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming did more than provide an avenue for debate. Overall, according to Politico, it held more than 75 hearings. They focused on renewable energy, reducing American dependence on oil resources obtained abroad, and the impacts of global warming.

Report: Oil drilling off Atlantic coast, Gulf coast of Florida to be banned

2010-12-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

Reuters is reporting today that the Obama administration has decided to ban oil drilling off the Atlantic coast and the Gulf coast of Florida.

The decision, which Reuters says was shared in a briefing to members of Congress, would apply for the five-year period between 2012-2017.

The report also says the administration won't approve leases off the coast of Alaska until 2012.

The Washington Post reports that the next Outer Continental Shelf drilling plan will also prohibit exploration activities off the Pacific coast.

If accurate, the decision to block drilling off the Atlantic coast and Florida's Gulf coast would be a reversal of the policy direction announced by Interior secretary Ken Salazar last spring.

NOAA: Jan- Oct. period in 2010 warmest across world in recorded history

2010-11-25T17:01:00.001-08:00

The ten-month period from Jan. 1 through Oct. 31 experienced the highest average air temperatures for that time of the year, as measured by the combined land and ocean surface technique, since records were started in 1880.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its monthly State of the Climate report, issued earlier this month, that the average combined land and ocean surface temperature worldwide during that portion of this year was the same as it was in 1998.

The agency also explained that both the average worldwide land surface temperature and the average worldwide ocean surface temperature were the second highest on record for the Jan. 1-Oct. 31 period.

For the month of October itself, the combined average worldwide land and ocean surface temperature was 0.54 degrees Celsius above the historic average and was the eighth-warmest since record-keeping began.

Large areas of the planet were substantially warmer than the norm, including western Alaska, Canada, northeastern Africa, the Middle East, Kazakhstan, and large portions of Russia.

Cooler-than-average locations included most of Europe, a large portion of Australia, and Mongolia.

Precipitation was highly variable around the planet.

The wettest areas during October were Canada's southwestern coast, most of Central America, northern South America, northern Scandinavia, certain areas along Africa's west coast, most of southern and southeastern Asia, southern Japan, parts of Micronesia and the Philippines, and southeastern Australia.

The driest areas were Canada's northwest coast, parts of the southern United States, northern Mexico, Colombia, eastern Peru, and parts of southern India.

In the United States, this October was the eleventh-warmest on record.

The month's average nationwide temperature of 56.9 degrees Fahrenheit was 2.1 degrees higher than the average for October during the years 1901-2000. None of the country's nine climate regions had an average monthly temperature below the norm.

Average precipitation across the country was 0.26 inches lower than the average for the month for the years 1901-2000. However, significant swaths of the nation experienced more dryness than usual, including the Great Plains, Ohio River valley, and the South.

Washington sets critical habitat for polar bear

2010-11-24T18:25:00.000-08:00

The icy home of the polar bear received additional legal protection Wednesday as the Obama administration designated nearly 200,000 acres as critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.

The decision could pose an insurmountable obstacle to additional oil and gas drilling off the Alaska coast, as the designation includes large areas of sea ice.

“This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations,” the Interior Department's assistant secretary for fish, wildlife, and parks, Tom Strickland, said in a statement. “Nevertheless, the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of its sea ice habitat caused by human-induced climate change. We will continue to work toward comprehensive strategies for the long-term survival of this iconic species.”

Nearly all of the protected acreage is ice on the surface of the Chukshi and Beaufort seas, which are sought-after exploration zones for the oil and gas industry.

The designation means that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have to decide whether extraction activity would damage the polar bear's habitat or set back its recovery before necessary exploration permits are granted.

About four percent of the lands protected by the decree are used by polar bears for denning and protection from human disturbance.

The administration lowered the amount of protected acreage by about 13,000 square miles from the total proposed in Oct. 2009. FWS also excluded five U.S. Air Force radar stations and two native villages from the area covered by the designation.

Polar bears cannot survive without sea ice. They use it as a platform to hunt seals, to seek mates, and occasionally to build maternity dens in which to raise cubs.

Private lands are not affected by the designation unless the owner seeks a federal permit, plans to use federal funds for a project, or the federal government itself engages in activities on it.

Lame-duck session could include lands bill, report says

2010-11-20T07:40:00.000-08:00

During its lame-duck session this month and next the Senate may take up a public lands bill that would create several new national parks, national monuments, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas.

The prospect of consideration of such an omnibus measure, and its passage, is uncertain.

According to a report in the New York Times, it is not clear that the leadership of the House of Representatives would agree to pass the bill without committee consideration in that chamber.

The package would also have to compete with several other priorities in the Senate.

The bill may also include provisions to improve protection of ocean resources and expand marine research and fisheries protections.

Fish and Wildlife Service releases annual list of candidate species

2010-11-09T18:15:00.000-08:00

Five species of plant and animal are new candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act, according to a notice issued today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

One species, a mammal native to California called the Palm Springs roundtail ground squirrel, was removed from the list.

The changes mean that there are now 251 species of plants and animals on the candidate species list.

Candidates for listing meet the statutory criteria for protection under the ESA but are not added to the roster of endangered and threatened species because the agency's resources are needed to list higher priority species.

FWS can act to conserve candidate species through extension of grants to states, territorial governments, and private entities. In addition, the agency has entered into 110 Candidate Conservation Agreements under which the parties agree to take specific actions, or avoid specific actions, with the aim of reducing the threat to a candidate species' survival.

More than 100 candidate species are managed under Candidate Conservation Agreements.