Tale of the tape -- Interior's grouse protection plans

The Bureau of Land Management released final plans last week for bolstering sage grouse protections across 50 million acres in 10 states in what's been called the agency's largest landscape-scale conservation plan. The Obama administration said the plans are a critical step to saving the West's vanishing sagebrush habitat and convincing the Fish and Wildlife Service that sage grouse need no protection under the Endangered Species Act. But industry groups panned the administration's land-use plans as a property grab, warning that they will restrict oil and gas drilling, mining, and other forms of development across much of the West and cause more economic harm than a federal listing (E&ENews PM, May 28). The plans will be a linchpin in the Fish and Wildlife Service's decision this September about whether sage grouse need Endangered Species Act protection. Stringent safeguards on BLM and Forest Service lands -- which represent about two-thirds of grouse habitat -- could avert a federal listing and ease development restriction on private lands. The resource plans released last week divide federal tracts into three categories: 31 million acres of "general habitat management areas," 35 million acres of "priority habitat management areas," and 11 million acres of "sagebrush focal areas," a subset of priority habitat. "Some will say the plans lock up development," Jewell said as she rolled out the plans last week in Cheyenne, Wyo. "I'd say, look at the numbers. The vast majority of the conventional and renewable energy resources that exist in these landscapes that we have in the plans will be available for development." Industry officials don't buy it. The Western Energy Alliance estimated that BLM's draft land-use plans released in recent years would threaten between 9,170 and 18,250 jobs in the oil and gas sector and have $2.4 billion to $4.8 billion in annual economic impact across Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. Laura Skaer, executive director of the American Exploration & Mining Association, said companies believe they would be better served by a federal listing. "With a listing, there is a recovery plan," she said. "There is no recovery plan from the onerous and draconian restrictions in the land-use plan amendments released last week. Once finalized, it will be almost impossible to change them."...more