Wildlife groups sue Obama administration to force tougher sage grouse rules

DENVER | Wildlife groups filed a lawsuit Thursday to force the Obama administration to further restrict oil and gas development, grazing and other economic activity on Western lands in the name of protecting the Greater sage-grouse.

The federal lawsuit would compel the administration to close “loopholes and giveaways” in the 14 land-management plans finalized last year that encompass sage-grouse habitat across 70 million acres of federal land in 10 Western states.

Environmentalists had pushed for the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Greater sage-grouse as endangered, but officials concluded in September that the revamped land-management plans, with their enhanced habitat protections, made such a listing unnecessary.

“The federal sage-grouse plans are a crazy-quilt of weak protections and politically motivated loopholes that allow many of the most destructive activities to continue,” said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with WildEarth Guardians. “Federal agencies turned their backs on the habitat protections recommended by their own scientists, and instead adopted political compromises that can’t — and won’t — prevent further sage-grouse declines.”

The lawsuit, filed by four wildlife groups represented by Advocates for the West, “doesn’t seek to eliminate the plans but to strengthen them with science-based protections recommended by the government’s own scientists,” said the Thursday press release.

Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of Western Energy Alliance in Denver, accused the groups of being more interested with shutting down economic activity in the West than with supporting effective conservation policies for the chicken-sized bird.

“Ultimately, the environmental groups are not interested in sage grouse conservation, but rather with greater centralized control of the West by the federal government,” said Ms. Sgamma in an email. “Their goal is to push any productive activities that form the basis of rural communities such as ranching and energy development off public lands.”

What environmentalists describe as a “crazy quilt” is actually a concerted effort to improve habitat for the sage-grouse that takes into account the unique conditions within each state and county, she said.

“These groups are using the courts to try to force the government to impose even more uniformity over such a broad area, no matter the actual conditions on the ground,” said Ms. Sgamma.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s decision on the sage grouse was highly anticipated by both environmental and pro-business groups, given the bird’s potential to shut down mineral exploration and development along with ranching and agriculture across the West.

The Greater sage-grouse’s numbers have dwindled from the millions to between 200,000 and 500,000, while the bird has an estimated 65 percent of its habitat from its historic range, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Idaho, names as plaintiffs Interior Assistant Secretary Janice Schneider, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service.

The wildlife groups singled out Wyoming, where the sage grouse is most abundant, arguing that protections are particularly weak there, given the state’s extensive oil and gas activity.

“It’s crazy that the state with the most healthy population of sage-grouse got the greatest loopholes for oil and gas,” said Todd Tucci, an attorney with Advocates for the West, in a statement.

The Wyoming plan was developed by the Bureau of Land Management with the input of conservation groups, industry, county representatives and the state Game & Fish Department, said Ms. Sgamma.

“It’s amusing to see the environmental groups disparage Wyoming’s plan, which is tailored to actual conditions on the ground, unlike the other federal plans that take a one-size-fits-all approach,” she said. “They just can’t stand the fact that BLM did the right thing in Wyoming and deferred to a state plan that was developed by all stakeholders.”

The lawsuit includes “all 14 of the recently adopted sage-grouse plan amendments and revisions plus the Lander Resource Management Plan, which the Bureau of Land Management finalized in 2014,” said the release.