White House

 

White House Tribal Nations Summit Kicks Off Without Secretary Haaland — “President Joe Biden is hosting the third White House Tribal Nations Summit of his administration this week but a key member of the team isn’t able to participate in person. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland will be absent because she just tested positive for COVID-19. She instead plans to take part in the two-day event virtually, her agency said in a statement on Monday. ‘Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland tested positive for COVID-19 today,’ the statement read. ‘She is experiencing mild symptoms and isolating per CDC guidance.’” [Red Lake Nation News, 12/5/23 (=)]

 

Haaland Tests Positive For Covid-19, Will Join Tribal Summit Remotely — “Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has tested positive for Covid-19 on the eve of a high-profile tribal summit, according to the Interior Department. In an early afternoon press statement, the department said Monday that the 63-year-old Haaland is ‘experiencing mild symptoms and isolating per CDC guidance.’ The 2023 White House Tribal Nations Summit scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday will continue as scheduled at Interior’s main headquarters, and Haaland will ‘actively participate’ remotely, the department said. Haaland was also scheduled to host a pre-summit reception for participants Tuesday night. Haaland is ‘fully vaccinated and receives boosters regularly,’ Interior said. She was previously reported to have tested positive for Covid-19 in June 2022, forcing her to cut short a planned trip to the West Coast. Haaland’s infection and her subsequent resorting to remote appearances again comes as congressional Republicans press Cabinet-level agencies to get workers back into their offices.” [E&E News, 12/4/23 (=)]

 

Get Well Soon — “Interior Secretary Deb Haaland tested positive for Covid on Monday and is experiencing mild symptoms, the department said. She’ll participate remotely in the White House Tribal Nations Summit scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.” [Politico, 12/5/23 (=)]

 

 

Department of the Interior (DOI)

 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)

 

US Proposes Recovery Plan For Snow-Dependent Canada Lynx — “U.S. officials proposed a $31 million recovery plan for Canada lynx on Friday in a bid to help the snow-dependent wildcat species that scientists say could be wiped out in parts of the contiguous U.S. by the end of the century. The proposal marks a sharp turnaround from five years ago, when officials in Donald Trump’s presidency said lynx had recovered and no longer needed protection after their numbers had rebounded in some areas. President Joseph Biden’s administration in 2021 reached a legal settlement with environmental groups to retain threatened species protections for lynx that were first imposed in 2000. Populations of the medium-sized wildcats in New Hampshire, Maine and Washington state are most at risk as warmer temperatures reduce habitat for lynx and their primary food, snowshoe hares, Fish and Wildlife Service documents indicate. But declines for lynx would be seen in boreal forests across the contiguous U.S. under even the most optimistic warming scenario that officials considered, the newly released documents show. That includes lynx populations in the northern and southern Rocky Mountains and in the Midwest.” [E&E News, 12/4/23 (=)]

 

Interior Advisers Urge Incentives, Not Regs To Cut Lead Ammo Use — “An Interior Department advisory panel Monday rallied around the use of education, partnerships and incentive programs rather than regulations as the best way to reduce use of lead ammunition. Confronting one of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s longest-running policy disputes, members of the Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Council agreed to send a batch of nonregulatory recommendations to Interior’s leadership. ‘If people work together, regulation should really be a last resort, especially if you can solve things by working together in partnership,’ said Joel Webster, with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. ‘All regulation does is create conflict.’ Land Tawney, former CEO of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and chair of the council’s wildlife health subcommittee, added that ‘we need to address this issue for wellness and health reasons. But we also need to address this issue so we can concentrate on other things.’ By voice vote, the advisory council approved sending a package of recommendations that characterize ‘public-private partnerships and incentive-based programs’ as the ‘most effective and least interruptive path forward’ in promoting non-lead alternatives.” [E&E News, 12/4/23 (=)]

 

 

States & Local

 

Alaska

 

ConocoPhillips Cleared To Work On Arctic Project This Winter — “An Alaska federal judge is allowing ConocoPhillips to resume work on its controversial Willow oil and gas project this winter, rejecting conservation groups’ attempt to put it on hold as they appeal a ruling upholding the federal approvals for the Arctic energy development. The Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, Sierra Club and other groups argue continued work on the project on Alaska’s remote North Slope threatens wildlife and subsistence resources. However, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon L. Gleason said competing narratives have found some of the infrastructure, such as gravel roads and boat ramps, would actually benefit the region’s subsistence hunters. ‘Here, plaintiffs have not persuasively demonstrated that injury to subsistence resources from Willow’s 2023-2024 winter construction activities is probable, especially in light of the competing perspectives of subsistence hunters in Nuiqsut,’ an Alaska Native community, Judge Gleason said in the Friday order denying the groups’ injunction request. The conservation groups also unsuccessfully tried to block construction last winter, but ConocoPhillips was able to develop a gravel mine and about 2 miles of road.” [Law360, 12/4/23 (=)]

 

Judge Allows Winter Work On Willow Oil Project — “A federal judge has shot down requests to block ConocoPhillips from moving ahead with construction on its Willow project, in another setback for Indigenous and environmental groups that oppose the $8 billion oil facility that the Biden administration approved earlier this year in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. In an order issued Friday, Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska rejected claims from the Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic and Center for Biological Diversity that the winter work — scheduled to restart Dec. 21 — would harm caribou and disrupt subsistence hunting in the state’s North Slope. The groups had asked for the work to remain on hold while they appeal an earlier ruling from Gleason that authorized the project to go forward. But the judge said the challengers’ claims did not meet the high bar for legal intervention. ‘Plaintiffs have not persuasively demonstrated that injury to subsistence resources from Willow’s 2023-2024 winter construction activities is probable, especially in light of the competing perspectives of subsistence hunters in Nuiqsut,’ said Gleason, an Obama pick.” [E&E News, 12/5/23 (=)]

 

Wyoming

 

Wyoming Weighs Selling Acreage Inside Grand Teton National Park — “The Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments figures it could raise millions of dollars for public schools just by selling one big chunk of trust land: 640-acres inside the eastern border of Grand Teton National Park. Reflecting prices in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the nation, the director of the state office on Friday recommended selling the land in a public auction for no less than $80 million, or $125,000 an acre. Many believe the plot would fetch an even larger price if the State Board of Land Commissioners approves the recommendation this week. As the Thursday vote approaches, opponents of all political stripes are lobbying the board to block or at least delay the sale, hoping the National Park Service can find a way to buy the prized land before it’s lost to a developer. ‘It would be the first time in my memory that anybody ever sold a piece of a national park to a developer — and it would be a first that Wyoming would not be proud of,’ said Rob Wallace, a Wyoming native who oversaw national parks during the last two years of the Trump administration as the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks.” [E&E News, 12/4/23 (=)]

 

 

Research, Analysis & Opinion

 

Wildfires Have Offset 20 Years Of Air Quality Gains In US West: Study — “The frequency and ferocity of wildfires across the U.S. West have negated the improvements in air quality achieved over the past two decades, a new study has found. From 2000 through 2020, air pollution has deteriorated in this part of the country due to these blazes, causing a surge of 670 premature deaths annually during that period, according to the study, published on Monday in The Lancet Planetary Health. Wildfires, the researchers determined, have managed to ‘undercut successful federal efforts’ from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has worked to improve air quality primarily through reduction in vehicular emissions. ‘Our air is supposed to be cleaner and cleaner due mostly to EPA regulations on emissions, but the fires have limited or erased these air-quality gains,’ co-first author Jun Wang, chair of the University of Iowa’s Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, said in a statement. ‘In other words, all the efforts for the past 20 years by the EPA to make our air cleaner basically have been lost in fire-prone areas and downwind regions,’ Wang continued. ‘We are losing ground.’” [The Hill, 12/4/23 (+)]

 

 

 

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