|
 A Reuters review of hundreds of federal records over a 10-year
period shows how the non-profit groups have had success by
inundating Washington with petitions for new protected-species
listings and lawsuits designed to compel regulators to respond.
Many of the new listings achieved by the Center for Biological
Diversity (CBD) and WildEarth Guardians have been for relatively
obscure species, such as snails and fish with compact habitats.
But their effort to protect a wide-ranging bird called greater sage
grouse has now sparked a backlash from critics who say the
Endangered Species Act is being manipulated and abused by
environmentalists through aggressive legal actions and closed-door
settlements.
The federal government must decide by Sept. 30 whether to protect
the sage grouse - which roams wind-swept grasslands spanning 11
Western U.S. states - under the 1973 law.
Though its habitat is vast, the number of grouse, known for their
elaborate mating dance, had fallen to between 200,000 and 500,000 by
2010 from the millions historically, and its territory has shrunk
due to development, according to the government.
As the listing deadline nears, it is becoming the focus of an effort
in the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress to roll back the
Endangered Species Act.
Republican lawmakers such as Congressman Rob Bishop, head of the
House Natural Resources Committee, and Senator James Inhofe,
chairman of the Senate environment committee, are seeking to
overhaul the law by giving more power to states and increasing the
transparency of legal settlements and listing decisions.
Political foes of listing the sage grouse for protection have sought
to block it with legislation in recent months.
Bishop attached a measure to a defense spending bill that passed the
House earlier this year that would prohibit any listing of the sage
grouse for 10 years. It's unclear whether the amendment will make it
into the final law.
"The Endangered Species Act has gone from a well-intentioned piece
of legislation in the 1970s to one that is dictated by environmental
activist groups taking advantage of the adversarial system," Inhofe
said at a hearing on the act in May.
Oil and agricultural interests want the West's arid expanse of
sagebrush - one of the last great undeveloped wildernesses in the
United States - kept open for drilling and grazing.
The stakes are high because the sage grouse's range is so vast,
covering 165 million acres - a little under the size of Texas. For
critics of the grouse's listing, mostly businesses and Republicans,
putting a regulatory fence around the grasslands to protect the bird
would represent the height of "big-government" overreach.
LAWSUIT STRATEGY
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which administers the law,
had sought to delay a decision on the bird, but cases brought by the
two environmental groups have forced the issue.
Under the Endangered Species Act, the government can list species on
its own, or members of the public, or groups can make the case to
add a species to the list by filing a petition.
The two groups have exploited bottlenecks in the species-listing
process by flooding the government with petitions. When a deadline
for a listing decision is missed, they have used litigation to
enforce them. Other groups petition and sue the government over
species, but none have been quite as prolific as the CBD and
WildEarth. Faced with more than a dozen lawsuits, the FWS entered into historic
settlements with the two groups in 2011 requiring the government to
make decisions on hundreds of species. In return, the groups agreed
to limit deadline lawsuits for several years.
The sage grouse was included in the settlement after the CBD and
WildEarth sued to challenge the government's 2010 ruling that the
bird warranted protection but that other species were a higher
priority.
Of the more than 600 species now under FWS review, about 77 percent
were submitted by the CBD. Another 16 percent were petitioned by
WildEarth. Many of these species were part of a 2010 "mega-petition"
from the CBD that included 404 species, as well as two huge 2007
petitions from WildEarth to list nearly 700 species.
[to top of second column] |
The FWS, whose listing budget shrank to $20.5 million for fiscal
2015 from about $22 million in 2010, has often been unable to meet
the law's strict deadlines because it was overwhelmed by the amount
of new petitions and lawsuits, agency officials say.
OVERWHELMING THE GOVERNMENT
More than 70 percent of FWS species listings since 2004 were spurred
by lawsuits, with the majority of them filed by the CBD and
WildEarth, based on a review of government data.
"The only way to get the agency's attention was to have a massive
number of petitions that kind of overwhelmed the agency and forced
them through a little shock therapy," said WildEarth Executive
Director John Horning.
From 2005 through 2009, the FWS listed at least 24 species for
federal protection after being sued by outside groups.
Between 2010 and 2014, when the two groups’ strategies took full
effect and after President Barack Obama took office, that jumped to
at least 197 new listings due to lawsuits.
Overall, listings climbed from just seven species in 2008 to a high
of 89 species in 2013, before falling to 38 in 2014.
Both founded in the Southwest in 1989, the CBD and WildEarth seek
protection for all threatened species, including obscure creatures
like crayfish, beetles, and mollusks.
In 2014, WildEarth reported it had an income of about $3.6 million,
with grants serving as the largest source of income. Major
contributors during that period included Patagonia, an outdoor
clothing company, and Wilburforce Foundation, a private charity that
funds conservation in the western United States and Canada,
according to the group's annual report.
The CBD brought in about $9.3 million in 2013, mostly from
membership fees and donations, according to its latest annual report
online. Major donors reported by the CBD that year include Fred
Stanback, an heir to the Stanback headache-powder fortune, and
Andrew Sabin, a metals magnate and conservationist.
Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the CBD, told
Reuters the legal actions were necessary.
"Species don't make campaign contributions and there are going to be
political forces opposed to species conservation," Greenwald said.
The lawsuits "balance that out," he said.
Although the FWS argues that the 2011 settlements brought order and
predictability to the listing process, Republican lawmakers say the
agreements were reached without serious input from the states or
Congress.
The Interior Department in May issued plans to conserve sage grouse
habitat in 10 states. Opponents of listing the sage grouse hope
these plans, along with state efforts to protect the bird, will
convince the service a federal listing is unneeded.
Further lawsuits are expected no matter what the government decides
on the grouse.
Retired Democratic Representative John Dingell, who co-authored the
Endangered Species Act, said the flood of litigation surrounding the
law does not reflect the original intent of Congress. He said the
lawsuits could be prevented if sufficient funds were provided to
implement the law.
"The intent of the Congress ... is being significantly perverted,
both by the polluters and the people who want something done,"
Dingell said.
(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Stuart Grudgings)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
