Republican senators from western states ripped the federal government’s plans to build up the population of the sage grouse Tuesday as “one size fits none” solutions.
In a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, officials from the Department of Interior and the U.S. Forest Service faced criticism from Republicans over how the federal government plans to deal with the chicken-sized bird known for its unique mating dance.
There used to be about 16 million sage grouse in the United States and now the population has dropped to about 400,000. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined last fall not to list it as an endangered species because 11 western states and the federal government pledged to come up with a plan to rebuild the population.
But, so far those plans have rankled western states. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said the Bureau of Land Management is not listening to states, which have spent millions studying the bird, on how to rebuild the population. The plans are often incongruent and do not take each other into account, he said.
“The birds don’t know the difference between a BLM section, a private section or a state section,” he said. “This is another example of the one-size-fits-none directives coming out of this town.”
Rebuilding the sage grouse population weaves together a number of issues all in one dancing bird. The federal government plans to make 10 million acres of public lands unavailable for oil and gas leasing in order to protect the birds, limit the grazing of cattle on federal lands that are part of the sage grouse habitat and forces the federal government to work with western state governments.
The senators on Tuesday’s panel were mostly concerned with the latter issue.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, complained that none of Utah’s suggestions were included in final plans after the federal government released preliminary plans for how to rebuild the sage grouse population in May 2015. He said Utah has spent $50 million studying the sage grouse and has increased the population of the bird in their state.
The fact that the federal government would ignore that knowledge and success shows the futility of a top-down implementation strategy, he said.
“They’ve spent this just studying the sage grouse and trying to get this right. It’s not like we’ve just thrown that money out there just to spend it, it’s not as though we’ve wasted it,” Lee said. “These studies have had a pretty good effect.”
State governments are being held hostage in implementing their plans by slow moving bureaucracy in Washington, said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
Barrasso said the hearing marked 280 days since the administration announced the sage grouse did not need to go on the endangered species list. The administration cited federal management plans as the primary reason why a listing wasn’t needed, but those plans were not tested and not finalized when the announcement was made.
“Since that time no instructional memoranda has been finalized, no final field guides have been made public and agency staff on the ground are no closer to implementing agency plans than they were last September,” Barrasso said.
Barrasso added that leaked drafts of memoranda were criticized as “inconsistent” and contained “unreasonable habitat targets that would not reflect on-the-ground range realities.”
Jim Lyons, the deputy assistance secretary for land and minerals at the Department of Interior, defended the administration by saying the federal government was still working with states in order to finalize their plans for the sage grouse.
He said that takes some time because, contrary to what the senators argued, the plans need to be state-specific.
“The plans are not a one-size-fits-all, as has been characterized, but are very different in their approach,” he said.
