Interior secretary under fire on wolf protection

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is standing by a proposal to de-list the gray wolf as an endangered species, but she stops short of endorsing legislation to overturn court orders that are keeping the animal under protection. Jewell is coming under pressure from House Democrats to heed the courts and at least protect the wolf under a downgraded, threatened status. The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in 2013 to de-list the gray wolf in most of the continental United States but courts have blocked the action in Wyoming and the western Great Lakes region. Legislation was recently introduced to finalize the de-listing. Under questioning by one of the bill's cosponsors, Rep. Dan Benishek, R-Mich., at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing Thursday, Jewell didn't endorse the measure (HR 884), but she said the administration would follow its directive if enacted. “Clearly we will uphold whatever laws are passed by Congress,” she told the committee. “My preference is certainly not to legislate the Endangered Species Act (ESA). But if Congress passed legislation certainly we will uphold the law.” But a letter to Jewell signed by 79 House members, mostly Democrats, and delivered to Jewell ahead of the hearing proposes to list the gray wolf as threatened, rather than endangered. Downgrading the wolf to threatened status would “allow states significantly increased certainty and flexibility” in managing the animals, the letter said. Jewell said the department would see “what we're permitted to do under the law.” Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee and another cosponsor of the del-isting legislation, wrote to Jewel in January, asking her to appeal the court decision that reinstated protections for the wolf in his home state. Peterson said reversing the court ruling would return management of the animal back to the state and help farmers and rancher facing a difficult decision between protecting their livestock and complying with another difficult federal court decision. On a separate issue, Jewell assured the committee the department would heed a policy rider in the fiscal 2015 omnibus spending bill that would prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from finalizing rules to protect sage grouse habitat under the Endangered Species Act. But she said the department would still meet a court-ordered deadline in September for determining whether the bird merits protection under the law. "The rider prevents us from writing any regulations .. however, it doesn't prevent the service from coming to a determination on a listing decision."...more