Court reverses ‘untethered’ suspension of BLM methane rule. “A federal court dealt another major blow last night to the Trump administration’s attempts to unwind Obama-era restrictions on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the Bureau of Land Management did not justify its decision to postpone core provisions of its 2016 Methane and Waste Prevention Rule. ‘The BLM’s reasoning behind the Suspension Rule is untethered to evidence contradicting the reasons for implementing the Waste Prevention Rule, and so plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits,’ Judge William Orrick wrote in a late-night opinion.” [E&E News, 2/23/18 (+)]
Watchdog seeks probe into Zinke gun-club outing. “A government watchdog group asked the Federal Election Commission on Thursday to investigate Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s appearance at Virgin Islands Fundraiser, and it plans to request that Interior’s Inspector General probe what it contends is his ‘pattern of violations’ of ethics regulations. The complaint letters from the Campaign Legal Center, which cite several POLITICO investigations as evidence, increase the scrutiny the former Montana congressman has faced over his habit of mixing official travel and political events in the Virgin Islands and the mainland. The Interior inspector general’s office is already conducting a review of Zinke’s travel and campaign finance practices, which it expects to release by April.” [Politico, 2/22/18 (+)]
Closing public lands to fossil fuel production cuts CO2 5% — study. “Ending fossil fuel leasing on federal lands could result in emissions cuts that are similar to the climate actions undertaken by the Obama administration, according to an analysis released yesterday. Leaving that oil, gas and coal in the ground could save 280 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030, or about 5 percent of total U.S. emissions. That would do more for the climate than U.S. EPA’s fuel economy standards for light- and heavy-duty vehicles combined, the study found. The research, published yesterday in the journal Climatic Change, was conducted by Peter Erickson and Michael Lazarus at the nonprofit Stockholm Environment Institute.” [E&E News, 2/23/18 (+)]
Enviros label 6 GOP lawmakers ‘enemies’ of federal lands. “Six Republicans have sponsored dozens of bills that would privatize or weaken protections for thousands of federal acres, according to a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity that labels these lawmakers as ‘Public Lands Enemies.’ The report released today centers on more than 120 ‘anti-public lands’ bills filed between Jan. 3 and Dec. 31, 2017, the first year of the Trump administration. The bills at issue, the report says, would ‘eliminate or weaken environmental laws and regulations on public lands’ and in some cases ‘take federal lands out of the public’s hands.’ ‘Overall, the most common legislative assault were bills to keep the public from knowing about environmental and public health threats from fracking, drilling, mining and logging,’ the report says.” [E&E News, 2/22/18 (+)]
Drillers move to defend rollback of fracking rule. “The oil and gas industry is heading to court to defend the Trump administration’s recent rollback of hydraulic fracturing safeguards. The Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance yesterday moved to join the Bureau of Land Management in fending off new litigation from California and environmentalists seeking to revive the agency’s Obama-era fracking rule. California and a coalition of environmental groups sued BLM and the Interior Department last month for rescinding the years-in-the-making regulation. The embattled rule — finalized in 2015 and tied up in litigation for years — set new environmental and safety standards for fracked wells on public and tribal lands.” [E&E News, 2/23/18 (=)]
National parks battle alien troublemakers. “At Biscayne National Park in Florida, workers have removed over 7,700 lionfish since the species was discovered there in 2009. The poisonous spines of the lionfish, which is native to the South Pacific and Indian oceans, can cause headaches, nausea, intense pain, paralysis and convulsions. ‘These fish are voracious,’ said Vanessa McDonough, a fishery and wildlife biologist at the park. One was once found with 65 prey organisms in its stomach. Ecosystem troublemakers like the lionfish are lurking in over half the country’s national park sites.” [E&E News, 2/22/18 (=)]
BOEM meeting format draws fresh criticism in D.C. “Supporters and opponents of the Interior Department’s draft five-year plan for offshore energy development yesterday filtered into a hotel meeting room in the northeast quadrant of the nation’s capital. They were greeted by dozens of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management staffers standing beside posters and armed with handouts loaded with information about the proposal to open up more than 90 percent of federal waters to offshore drilling. The format, first used during the Obama administration, has frustrated plan critics who had hoped to share their grievances in front of a larger audience — rather than in one-on-one conversations with government employees (Greenwire, Feb. 14).” [E&E News, 2/23/18 (=)]
Critics of drilling plans cite ‘assault’ on tribes. “The winter cold and darkness were beginning to settle on a group of Native Alaskans outside the Dena’ina Center on Wednesday as they sang traditional songs and protested the Interior Department’s proposal to allow oil and gas leasing along most of Alaska’s shores. Adrienne Titus, a representative of the indigenous group Native Movement, said she came to the event because she’s worried that oil drilling in the waters off Unalakleet, where she grew up, ‘would affect my way of life, our basic human rights as indigenous people who have been in Alaska since time immemorial.’ Most villagers in Unalakleet and other Native communities in Alaska rely on subsistence hunting and fishing for food, a practice that Titus said would be severely affected by offshore oil development.” [E&E News, 2/23/18 (=)]
Senate Democrats push Zinke to restart safety study. “A coalition of 19 Democratic senators is pressing the Interior Department to reverse its suspension of independent offshore safety research. Led by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the lawmakers sent a letter today to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke urging him to immediately reauthorize a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that had been halted late last year. The research was scrutinizing the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s oversight of offshore oil and gas safety. The request comes days after BSEE said it is investigating another offshore fatality that occurred on a platform in the Gulf of Mexico.” [E&E News, 2/22/18 (=)]
Spectacular fossils found at Bears Ears — right where Trump removed protections. “One of the world’s richest troves of Triassic-period fossils has been discovered in an area of Bears Ears National Monument that just lost its protected status, scientists announced Thursday. President Trump signed a proclamation in December that shrank the national monument by 85 percent. The discovery of intact remains of crocodile-like animals called phytosaurs came to light this week when researchers announced it at the Western Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists conference at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah. Based on an initial excavation, the 70-yard-long site, its depth yet unknown, ‘may be the densest area of Triassic period fossils in the nation, maybe the world,’ Rob Gay, a contractor at the Museums of Western Colorado, said in a statement.” [Washington Post, 2/22/18 (+)]
Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper tells ag community future is in outdoor recreation. “Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said this week that the outdoor recreation industry is one area that can help rural communities rebound economically. In January, the Colorado Convention Center hosted the first of five years of shows from the Outdoor Industry Association, which for years had been held in Salt Lake City. Hickenlooper, speaking to an audience at the 27th annual Governor’s Forum on Agriculture this week, said that the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office met with representatives from recreation offices and outdoor recreation companies from eight states, and the result was something called the Colorado Accord. It’s a nonpartisan effort to work on issues related to clean air, water and public land – areas the trade association strongly supports and part of the reason the trade show moved to Colorado, he said.” [Durango Herald, 2/22/18 (+)]
Utah Legislature urges full compensation on rural $ for federal lands. “Utah may have received $38.4 million in the last year from the federal government to make up for lands inside its borders that don’t generate property tax revenue, but lawmakers overwhelmingly believe it’s chump change compared with what they deserve. To that end, both the House and Senate in the Utah Legislature on Thursday unanimously signed off on a resolution and a subsequent bill that directs a more thorough accounting of the lost dollars. The program is Payment in Lieu of Taxes, established in 1976 by the federal government to compensate states with large swaths of federally held land that is unable to generate property tax revenue. Those would be lands such as national parks, acreage managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service.” [Deseret News, 2/22/18 (=)]
Utah lawmaker hit hard by conflict-of-interest concerns. “Utah state Rep. Mike Noel has come under increasing scrutiny for his failure to disclose land holdings worth $1.2 million inside and near the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Noel, a Republican, sponsored a resolution last year urging Congress to cut the monument’s size. His parcel of land was taken out of the monument area when President Trump shrank the site last year. He has also backed a costly pipeline that would carry Colorado River water from Lake Powell to 13 southern Utah communities. Both would benefit him and pose conflicts of interest, according to an analysis released last week by the environmental group Western Values Project (Greenwire, Feb. 14).” [E&E News, 2/22/18 (=)]
130 pack courtroom to talk about wilderness bill; verdict split. “More than 130 people packed into a Fergus County Courtroom Wednesday to give opinions on a bill that would remove five wilderness study areas (WSA) totaling 449,550 acres in Montana from future wilderness consideration, with the meeting showing a deep divide over how to best manage these public lands. Passionate pleas were offered for and against the controversial legislation. Supporters of the bill argued that motorized access in these areas has been reduced for recreation and management. Moreover, they added, it was long past due to remove the WSA designations and hold a discussion on how to manage the land going forward.” [Great Falls Tribune, 2/21/18 (=)]
Tribal members sue to stop gold drilling in Black Hills. “The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe said Thursday that three of its members have filed a lawsuit to stop exploratory gold drilling near Rochford. The lawsuit in Pennington County circuit court challenges a recent decision by the South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environment. On Jan. 18, the board transferred an exploration permit from the Canadian company Mineral Mountain Resources Ltd. to the company’s South Dakota-registered affiliate, Mineral Mountain Resources (SD) Inc.” [Rapid City Journal, 2/22/18 (=)]
Op-Ed: Trump’s rush to drill on public land is the opposite of ‘America First’. “The tragic irony is that it is more the administration than the oil and gas industry demanding this plunder. The industry’s growth is rooted in shale formations, the vast majority of which are not located on public lands. That’s why Zinke’s recent, largest lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska were duds, and why, according to reports, as of 2016, more than half of the 27 million acres the oil and gas industry has under lease lay idle.” [Washington Post, 2/22/18 (+)]
Op-Ed: Reckoning with
History: The Antiquities Act quandary. “‘Ambition must be made to
counteract ambition,’ Madison wrote to explain balancing branches of government.
‘In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great
difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the
governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.’ Congress did this
for Alaska and Wyoming, but its monumental inability to legislate on
environmental matters today has created a surge in the use of executive power,
which fills the vacuum left by congressional gridlock. And this produces
uncertainty, both for local land users and our system of government. While the
balance of powers has been fundamental to American democracy, the practice of
one president rescinding the monuments of another is surely not the system
Madison intended to create.” [High Country News, 2/22/18
(+)]
Op-Ed: Trump’s proposed budget cuts threaten national parks. “A 2016 study found that visitors to Acadia National Park annually spend over $274 million in the local economy and create nearly 4,200 jobs, with a cumulative impact of $333 million. Let me be clear: Any significant funding reductions for Acadia (and other national parks) will result in: fewer rangers to provide visitor services, diminished natural and historical resource protection, a loss of the quality experience for Americans visiting their national parks and negative impacts to the local economy. Surely this nation is wealthy enough to fully fund our collective national heritage contained in America’s premier National Park Service.” [Portland Press Herald, 2/23/18 (+)]
Editorial: Tester clearheaded on issues Montanans care about. “He’s pushing hard for bills that would prevent mining near Yellowstone Park, and forge the compromise worked out by the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project, a group of local loggers, ranchers, outfitters, conservationists, snowmobilers, business owners, and outdoor recreationists in the Ovando and Seeley Lake area. It would ensure public-lands access as well as some timber production and protection of the headwaters of the Big Blackfoot. We concur with both positions; we favor mining in many areas and under many circumstances, but not on the edge of Yellowstone Park when tourism is as crucial to the area as it is. We also support both the conservation and the logging aspects of the Blackfoot Clearwater bill. The fact that both environmentalists and hard-core land privatization advocates are shooting at the compromise means to us that it gets a lot right.” [Montana Standard, 2/22/18 (+)]