BLM Releases EIS Statements for Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation
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The Bureau of Land Management is hoping to revive controversial revisions to Obama-era greater sage grouse protection plans that a federal judge blocked last year.
BLM has completed six draft supplemental environmental impact statements (EISs) that correct problems identified by Judge B. Lynn Winmill in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.
The agency has published the draft documents in the Federal Register.
Judge Winmill issued a preliminary injunction last October blocking the Trump administration’s revised sage grouse plans.
The conservation plans cover millions of acres of sage grouse habitat in seven states: California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
Among other things, Winmill wrote that it is “well-within the agency’s discretion” to tweak the Obama-era plans but criticized BLM for not taking a “hard look” at the impacts of the revisions to the grouse as required by NEPA.
“Certainly, the BLM is entitled to align its actions with the State plans, but when the BLM substantially reduces protections for sage grouse contrary to the best science and the concerns of other agencies, there must be some analysis and justification — a hard look — in the NEPA documents,” Winmill, a Clinton appointee, wrote in the order.
“It is likely that plaintiffs will prevail on their claim that this hard look was not done with respect to all six” final EISs that evaluated the grouse plan revisions. BLM used those six reviews to justify the final changes to the plans early last year,” concluded Winmill.
Winmill’s order stemmed from a lawsuit filed by a coalition of groups — the Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Prairie Hills Audubon Society — challenging the revisions.
BLM says the revisions better align federal grouse protection measures with state conservation plans.
The revisions — begun in 2017 by then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and finalized last March by his successor, David Bernhardt — have drawn bipartisan support from Western leaders, including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R).
Source: E & E News
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