The Obama administration on Thursday issued final guidelines for implementing its contentious plan to protect the chicken-sized sage grouse from oil and natural gas development.
The guidance came as President Obama began a global tour promoting his conservation programs as a means of fighting climate change.
“Consistent with our unprecedented cooperation in developing the greater sage-grouse plans, the implementation policies we are releasing today were developed in coordination with our partners in the states and interested stakeholders,” said Neil Kornze, director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management.
The highly anticipated rules were welcomed by conservationists as the final step in implementing last year’s plan for protecting the bird. Proponents hailed the administration’s commitment to protecting the bird species in the West, while noting that opposition by Republicans and some industry groups is the wrong direction.
Republicans, ranchers and some in the oil and gas industry have criticized the Interior Department’s plan for protecting the sage grouse bird as haphazard and nearly impossible to follow while continuing development on western lands.
“These management plans are not about the sage grouse at all,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “Once again, the Obama administration is tying up energy development and seizing state-level conservation efforts. The only sensible way forward is to allow the state and local governments — who have the best knowledge — to manage the land in their own backyards.”
The administration did not list the bird as threatened or endangered, but chose the unusual way of protecting the bird through a complex land management plan issued a year ago. Thursday’s rules lay out the specifics for how land users would abide by the plan.
The Wilderness Society said the guidance will “provide all users” within the bird’s habitat “with certainty,” said Phil Hanceford, assistant director for the group’s policy office. “We are delighted to see BLM following through on its conservation commitment to the greater sage-grouse by releasing new implementation directives.”
Hanceford said the one-year anniversary of the sage-grouse conservation plan being released is soon approaching. Yet, in that time, all conservationists have seen is attacks by Congress opposing the plan.
“We have seen them attacked senselessly in Congress and by some in industry,” he said. “This is not only detrimental to the efforts to protect this bird — that serves as a barometer for the health of over 350 other species and the sagebrush ecosystem — it ignores the bipartisan and collaborative nature of the agreement reached last year.
“We hope to see federal and state decision makers continue to move forward together in a way that is best for the sagebrush sea — let’s give the plans a chance to work,” he said.
