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  • Audio file (If file doesn’t begin playing immediately, right-click to download it and then listen) USGS links Assessment of undiscovered oil resources in the Bakken and Three Forks Formations, Williston Basin Province, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, 2013 Input-form data for the U.S. Geological Survey assessment of the Devonian and Mississippian Bakken and Devonian Three [...]

  • Other links Pesticide report leaves tough questions unanswered (Defenders of Wildlife) Feds Are Failing to Protect Endangered Species From Pesticides (Center for Biological Diversity) Press release from National Research Council (4/30/2013) Federal Agencies Should Use a Common Approach to Evaluate Risks That Pesticides Pose to Endangered and Threatened Species WASHINGTON — When determining the potential effects [...]

  • “W.Va. members of Congress promise action against EPA” is the headline in the West Virginia Record, whose article noted that 80 percent of the state’s congressional delegation had posted press releases criticizing the D.C. Circuit’s decision that said EPA had the authority to partially revoke a permit for the Spruce Mine. (Only Jay Rockefeller appears [...]

  • The National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council will release a report next week evaluating the effects of pesticides on threatened and endangered species. Here’s the statement from NAS: Evaluating Risks That Pesticides Pose to Endangered, Threatened Species – New Report A new report from the National Research Council examines how the U.S. Environmental Protection [...]

  • U.S. District Court Judge Joseph C. Spero dismissed an ESA citizen suit seeking to force consultation under the ESA “regarding the effects of 382 registered pesticides on endangered and threatened species” (Center for Biological Diversity v. EPA, 11-293-JCS, N.D. Cal.). “Plaintiffs have not pled sufficient facts to show that the EPA was required to reinitiate [...]

  • The D.C. Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision that had scolded EPA for revoking a Clean Water Act permit that already had been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Mingo Logan Coal Co. v. U.S. EPA, 12-5150, 4/23/13). Wrong, the appeals court said. “[W]e reverse the district court insofar as it [...]

  • Daily Digest (April 19, 2013): Asian elephant shot, loggerhead sea turtle egg snatcher sentenced, DOI budget proposed

    Catching up on the Fish and Wildlife Service: The service’s main page features the following news releases: FWS is investigating the shooting of an Asian elephant traveling with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus in Tupelo, Miss. “The incident occurred in the early morning of April 9, 2013, outside the Bancorp South Arena,” the [...]

  • Daily Digest (April 17, 2013)

    The American Bird Conservancy is touting a study that concludes feral cats are killing endangered Hawaiian petrels. The proof is in the pictures, ABC said. For the first time, videos were taken showing cats preying on petrels. In one, a feral cat “wait[ed] near the entrance of a burrow for over one hour.  When the [...]

  • Link to the full document The Obama Administration today released its National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy, which the service said “provides a roadmap of key steps needed over the next five years to reduce the current and expected impacts of climate change on our natural resources, which include: changing species distributions and [...]

  • Audubon writer Ted Williams suspended, pulled from masthead, for Orlando Sentinel column on feral cats

    Update, 3/25/13: The media are starting to take note of Williams’ suspension. See the article and the list of links below for more coverage of this story. Veteran conservation journalist Ted Williams, who for years has penned the Incite column for Audubon magazine, has been suspended and had his name removed from the publication’s masthead, [...]

Hastings calls another hearing on costs, impacts of ESA litigation

 Posted by on June 8, 2012  Court calls, Daily Links, ESA, FWS, Listings, NMFS
Jun 082012
 

Endangered Species Act litigation has been a favored subject of House Natural Resources Committee chairmen for years, and Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) is no exception.

But Hastings may be unique in scheduling a hearing on ESA litigation so soon after the committee heard witnesses hold forth on that very subject.

Doc Hastings (R-Wash.)

In December, the committee held a hearing, ”The Endangered Species Act: How Litigation is Costing Jobs and Impeding True Recovery Efforts.”

He’ll take another look on June 19, at a hearing entitled “Taxpayer-Funded Litigation: Benefitting Lawyers and Harming Species, Jobs and Schools.”

A committee spokesperson said no more details — such as a witness list — are available, but we’re guessing that Hastings will grill Interior Department and Fish and Wildlife Service officials in an attempt to find out exactly how much is spent dealing with litigation — not just in attorney fees, but in complying with court orders and settlements. In March, he sent a letter to Assistant Attorney General for Environment and Natural Resources Ignacia Moreno asking for information on ESA cases handled by DOJ since 2009.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich’s letter in response is here, and the attachments are here.

Then at the end of May, Hastings fired off some more letters, to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, Bonneville Power Administration  CEO Steve Wright, and Moreno, requesting details on four cases costing the government more than $7 million in attorney fees, as well as on the settlements between FWS and WildEarth Guardians, and FWS and the Center for Biological Diversity, that involve close to 800 species.

The officials were asked to provide answers by June 14. That information — or however much of it they can provide — is likely to be a bone of contention at the upcoming hearing.

Both the Fish and Wildlife Service and critics of the ESA have claimed that lawsuits brought by environmental groups sap agency resources that could be used to focus on species recovery and listings.

Environmentalists, however, argue that without the lawsuits, species that deserve federal protection would not get it. It was hoped that the FWS-WEG-CBD settlements reached last year would reduce the time agency biologists and others spend dealing with litigation.

Virtually all attorney fees awarded in ESA cases lost or settled by the government come from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund. Only in special circumstances is the money deducted from the agency’s program budget. A GAO report released in April found that between March 2001 and September 2010, more than $21 million was paid in attorney fees involving ESA cases.