Western governors back Endangered Species Act, with changes

The Republican-dominated Western Governors Association endorsed the aims of the Endangered Species Act on Wednesday but asked Congress to make changes, including giving states a bigger role and clarifying recovery goals for species protected by the law. The governors said Western states benefit economically from healthy species and ecosystems but bear the burden of land-use restrictions that usually come with species protection, as well as some of the cost of recovery programs. The 22-member association approved a resolution giving qualified backing for the act during a meeting in Whitefish, Montana. The governors include 14 Republicans, six Democrats and two independents. The vote count wasn’t released...more

 The WGA resolution is embedded below

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Yd5M8kgeNtSnJYTkI2WFkyYXM/view?usp=sharing

Bipartisan Western Governors Urge Endangered Species Act Reform

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 3, 2014 - In a recent letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Governors John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado) and Brian Sandoval (R-Nevada) eexpressed encouragement regarding the House of Representatives’ efforts to improve and update the Endangered Species Act (ESA), as evidenced most recently by the House Natural Resources Committee’s passage of a package of four ESA-related reform measures.  Pointing out the significant species conservation programs and comprehensive and current data provided by states, the Governors noted that the ESA “could be greatly improved through targeted reforms, particularly those that would involve states as full and equal partners in the development of scientific data, analyses and management provisions applied within listing, recovery and de-listing decisions.” 
Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) expressed appreciation for the Western Governors’ bipartisan letter.  “With the important role that states are playing to help keep species off of the ESA list, I am pleased Western Governors agree that common sense, targeted reforms can improve the ESA while protecting state data and landowners rights.  Earlier this year, the House Natural Resources Committee passed four bills intended to do that. We look forward to working with our colleagues in the House to improve ESA listing data and litigation transparency and other measures to focus resources on actual data and recovery of species, rather than on lawyers.”
Western Caucus Co-Chairman Cynthia Lummis (WY-at large) stated, “I am very pleased that our western governors are adding their voice to the ESA reform effort.  The whole point of this reform effort is to find ways to bring the ESA into the 21^st century, and enhancing the role of the states is a critical component.  States care deeply about conservation and have proven their abilities to understand firsthand the needs of both the species and people.  They have led the way on species science, species conservation, and species recovery.  It’s high time we recognize the importance of the states in ESA decision-making.”

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Western Governors Defend Their Efforts to Protect the Sage Grouse

How much is enough? Maybe even too much? That's what the Western Governors' Association wants to know as it pertains to protecting the Western and Gunnison sage grouse. In a recent letter to Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell, the governors offered their third inventory of programs and initiatives that the states are undertaking to preserve the potentially threatened birds. "These steps preclude the need to include the greater sage grouse on the federal endangered species list," the governors asserted. Should the greater sage grouse or the smaller population of Gunnison sage grouse be listed as an endangered species, the states fear that it would impact oil and gas operations and cattle ranching across much of the Intermountain West. Eleven states have sage grouse habitat, and not one wants its birds listed.  Writing in High Country News, environmental studies professor Andrew Gulliford doesn't think so. He states that the Gunnison sage grouse in particular is faced with extinction, with fewer than 5,000 remaining. Another assessment of the sage grouse's fate is offered by the National Wildlife Refuge Association, which notes their greatly reduced numbers largely due to disrupted habitat...more

Secretary Jewell meets with western governors to provide update on Sage Grouse Conservation Planning

At a meeting with western governors today, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell applauded the unprecedented federal-state cooperation on planning efforts to conserve the greater sage-grouse but emphasized that much work still needs to be done by both the federal government and the states in advance of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s September 2015 deadline to determine if the species warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act. “Thanks to our partnership with states throughout the range of the greater sage-grouse, we have made tremendous progress analyzing and planning landscape-level strategies that could lessen the threats to the bird and conserve its sage-brush habitat,” said Jewell. “At the same time, we are not yet where we need to be and it is time for both the states and the federal government to redouble our efforts so that we can have effective conservation efforts in place before a listing determination must be made.” Jewell highlighted important steps that have been taken including publication before the end of the year of draft changes to 98 resource management plans by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service that are expected to be finalized next year following a public comment period. She emphasized that conservation efforts on state and private lands need to be accelerated to mitigate the threats to the bird. “The states, too, must complete and begin to implement their own plans for state and private lands on a similar timeline,” she said. “The Fish and Wildlife Service needs substantial certainty that these plans will both be in place and effective as it considers the biological and legal issues related to a listing decision.”...more

Wyoming Gov. Mead seeks better cooperation with states from Interior Secretary Sally Jewell

Gov. Matt Mead hopes Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will further commit to cooperation with and deference to the states during her keynote address today at the Western Governors' Association Conference in Las Vegas. Mead has not always agreed with Jewell or her predecessor, Ken Salazar, but it helps to have a working relationship, given that the secretary oversees the Bureau of Land Management's national parks and fish and wildlife services, said the governor’s press secretary, Renny MacKay. Mead would like to see the department reconsider the BLM's hydraulic fracturing rule, which is redundant since Wyoming’s rule -- the first one adopted by a state -- applies to BLM land, MacKay said. Other governors attending the winter meeting are John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, C. L. "Butch" Otter of Idaho, Steve Bullock of Montana and Gary Herbert of Utah...more

Western governors show wildlife maps at Vegas meeting

Governors in 16 states are unveiling a high-tech wildlife habitat mapping project they hope will encourage economic development across the West while protecting the region’s environmental treasures from Puget Sound to the Rocky Mountains. The Western Governors’ Association wants to make it easier to chart paths across large landscapes where developers can expect the least regulatory resistance and threat of litigation as they draft plans to build highways, dig gold mines and erect power lines, pipelines or wind farms. Five years in the making, the database will connect 16 western states from California and Alaska to Montana and Oklahoma with a first-of-its-kind online system of colorful GIS maps displaying wildlife habitat, wetlands and other valuable natural resources — much of it detailed down to square-mile increments. The Crucial Habitat Assessment Tool, or CHAT, provides layers of data that rate the resources on a scale of one to six, from most to least “crucial.” Individual states determine those priorities based on their information about such things as the condition of the habitat and the individual species’ economic and recreational importance. “The governors intent back in 2008 really was to cater to industries within their states who need data while at the same time conserving the resources the states are blessed with and the governors are charged with preserving,” said Carly Brown, policy manager for the Western Governors Association...more