Feds propose listing slickspot peppergrass again, putting ball in Otter's court

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has, once again, proposed listing the flowering slickspot peppergrass as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. The plant is found only in the sagebrush steppe and only in southwest Idaho. This proposal is the latest in a legal battle between Western Watersheds Project on one side, which wants the plant listed, and the state of Idaho and Gov. Butch Otter, who don’t want it listed. Western Watersheds sued U.S. Fish and Wildlife for not listing slickspot peppergrass in 2003 and won in 2004. The government had to go back to the drawing board, decided in 2009 to list the plant and Otter sued. Chief U.S. Magistrate Candy Dale ruled in August 2011 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s process for listing the plant under the Endangered Species Act was flawed. Dale refused to reconsider her ruling the following year. So once again, Fish and Wildlife started over...more