Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Sage Grouse and Oil Drilling Can Co-Exist, Says New Report
For the past five years the greater sage-grouse has been considered a
candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Also
during that time something unique happened: the 11 western states with
sage-grouse populations cooperated with the federal government and
private conservation organizations and corporations to do everything
they could to keep the bird off the endangered species list. Why would they do this? The logic was simple: if the bird’s
populations could recover or at least stabilize—and there was some
indication that it could—there would be less need to protect it. Keeping
the sage-grouse off the ESA would ensure that the Act did not close off
some lands to energy development. One of the components in this was the identification of priority areas of conservation (PACs) for the sage-grouse (pdf).
Although much smaller than the birds’ historic range, these lands
represent what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined to be
the most important habitats for the birds in the future. The process
didn’t actually set aside any land for conservation or establish any new
land-use rules. That would follow after an eventual ESA listing. Now a new report (pdf)
finds that these PACs are of great value to the greater sage-grouse but
not all that important for energy development. The report—prepared by
Western EcoSystems Technology for a conservation group called the Western Values Project—compared
PACs on federal land in seven states to existing leases and
rights-of-way for coal, oil, natural gas, solar and wind development. It
also looked at the potential of PACs for development of those energy
sources. The conclusions: only 16 percent of federal land within the
PACs had much potential for oil and gas development. An additional 30
percent have potential for solar development. Just six percent have
wind-power potential...more
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