At first glance, the Obama administration’s decision Tuesday not to list the greater sage grouse as an endangered species seems like a win for the businesses and residents who develop land, drill, hunt, or ranch on the 165 million acres of the bird’s habitat.
On a closer look, though, the new land-use restrictions issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior regarding the habitat are a distinct loss for eleven Western states, including Montana, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has been framing the decision as a milder result for private landowners and businesses in these states, who won’t be subject to the regulations that an endangered-species listing would impose. But 15 amendments to the federal land-use plan still impose regulations — ones that are worse than the regulations entailed by an endangered-species listing in at least two ways.
First, unlike the endangered-species regulations, which cease to apply if an animal is eventually de-listed, these regulations could stay on the books for the next 15 to 20 years. Second, whereas the Endangered Species Act provides means of regulatory relief for private entities, no such accommodations currently exist under the land-use plan.
The plan applies only to federally owned land, but ranchers on adjacent private land have traditionally been able to obtain permits to let their cattle graze on the federal land. However, the trend in federal regulation has been toward turning multiple-use federal lands into single-use habitats for the grouse. In other words, grazing permits could stop being issued.
The top-down approach of federal conservation efforts is heavy-handed and less effective than state efforts, which have been lauded by the Interior Department and private research groups alike for their success in growing the sage-grouse population.
The new federal regulations are “based on a punitive approach to conservation,” Brian Seasholes, a research fellow at the Reason Foundation, tells National Review. “If you want successful conservation, you must encourage private individuals to help, not dis-incentivize them.”
The new federal regulations punish private landowners, rather than rewarding them for their conservation efforts. The land-use plan focuses almost exclusively on restricting various human activities within millions of acres of federal lands.
On private lands, where these regulations don’t apply, ranchers, who are essentially land managers by trade, can exercise their far superior knowledge in harmonizing their ranching activities with conservation of the sage grouse’s habitat.
#share#States also deal better than federal regulators with land owners, through cooperation and partnerships, which yield workable solutions.
States, municipalities, and industry groups have the best-quality scientific data on the sage grouse, according to a Reason Foundation report. Local scientists’ proximity to the habitat means they can conduct research more thoroughly than federal agencies can. Even a report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Conservation Objectives Team acknowledges that “states have the most complete local information of sage-grouse distribution and habitat use.”
It is unclear whether the federal regulations will supersede conflicting state regulations, but Seasholes points out that the feds have ignored the objections to the amendments filed by several states, which argue that the federal regulations illegally infringe upon state prerogatives. The states are likely to sue, along with members of the regulated community, such as the oil and gas industries. Idaho and Nevada have already filed administrative appeals to the Bureau of Land Management over the bureau’s inadequate reply to their initial review of the amendments. It is widely believed that Utah will sue as well.
What is clear is that, as they stand, the new federal regulations do conflict with existing state regulations. In an interview with National Review, Senator Steve Daines (R., Mont.) lamented the “two sets of rules” for Montanans — “one made up by a bunch of D.C. bureaucrats, and one made up by Montanans.”
One issue the senator highlights regards the two different requirements — Montana’s and the federal government’s — for buffer zones around grouse nests. The state plan requires 0.6 miles, while the federal plan requires 3 to 5 miles. This difference has implications for farmers and for ranchers, and it could affect the building of roads.
The Interior Department’s land-use plan is the latest of the politically charged dealings surrounding the bird’s status. Recently, a fierce controversy erupted over an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act renewing expired grazing permits on sage-grouse habitat.
In July of 2014, Senate Democrats and Republicans debated whether conservation efforts should fall under federal or local control. Democratic senators John Walsh of Montana and Mark Udall of Colorado supported federal control under the Endangered Species Act, although their states, like the rest of the region, have long begrudged the federal government’s direction of their affairs. Udall lost to Republican Cory Gardner in the November elections, and Walsh dropped his reelection bid.
The federal government’s punitive, top-down approach to this issue could undermine state conservation efforts and burden private businesses and individuals for years to come.
— Celina Durgin is a Collegiate Network fellow at National Review Online.
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