Sunday, October 19, 2014

Secret DOI sage grouse workshop infuriates House reps

U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Washington, and 17 other members of Congress sent a letter Thursday to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell questioning the Interior Department’s bias and lack of transparency regarding the possible listing of the Greater Sage Grouse as an endangered species. “With less than a year to go before the department’s self-imposed September 2015 settlement deadline to determine whether to list the Greater Sage Grouse under the ESA, it appears that the department is blatantly ignoring or downplaying significant flaws and gaps in its own sage grouse data and science, and failing to incorporate recent data that suggests sage grouse populations are stable and not declining,” wrote the representatives in the letter. “We are also concerned that, at the same time, the department has set in motion a process to mandate, through revisions to 98 resource management plans, mitigation requirements which have not been deemed necessary or helpful to sage grouse that would devastate state and local economies and severely impact private property owners’ activities in portions of eleven western states,” said the letter. In the letter to Jewell, the representatives strongly objected to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and U.S. Geological Survey joint October 22-23, 2014, workshop in Fort Collins, Colorado, ostensibly “to collect information from scientific experts” on various scientific questions on genetic differences of sage grouse. “In addition, the FWS recently confirmed that the few (were invited according to)_rigid, somewhat exclusionary criteria to participate at the Fort Collins October workshop,” observed the representatives. “It is concerning that the invited participants … do not include any representatives of affected states or state fish and wildlife agencies that have been working on plans to avoid a federal ESA listing. Non-profit science researchers (such as those from litigious groups favoring a federal listing) are apparently invited, while other scientists employed by industries or non-government entities appear to be excluded.” “Adding insult to injury the public would not be allowed to observe or obtain any information relating to this ‘workshop’ until well after the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service finalize their resource management plan revisions and the FWS finalizes its listing decision,” the representatives asserted...more

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