Rural congressmen call for letting off-highway race occur

Vegas to Reno race

The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday closed the the public comment period on the Environmental Assessment for the Special Recreation Permit for the Best in the Desert annual Vegas to Reno off-highway vehicle race scheduled to start Aug. 19.

The agency had extended the deadline for three days to give the cactus-hugger, self-styled environmentalists more time to concoct imaginative excuses for prohibiting any kind of profitable or pleasurable activity by anyone anywhere.

This prompted Nevada’s congressmen who represent the rural counties through which the race is to be routed — Reps. Cresent Hardy and Mark Amodei — to fire off a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell calling for approval of the race, which they say is estimated to generate upwards of $40 million in economic activity for the rural communities involved. Hardy-Amodei Letter to Sec. Jewell

A group calling itself Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility had protested routing the 640-mile race across a 37-mile stretch of dirt road on the newly minted 700,000-acre Basin and Range National Monument. The race is expected to involve about 300 motorcycles, trucks, dune buggies and assorted all-terrain vehicles, as well as several thousand spectators. It has been run annually for 20 years by the Best in the Desert Racing Association. It starts near Alamo, has an overnight stop in Tonopah and ends near Dayton.

“BLM’s race plan makes a mockery out of President Obama’s monument declaration,” PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said in a statement. “BLM is playing fast and loose with its legal obligations in order to let hundreds of vehicles roar through fragile desert before the monument’s protections can be solidified.”

A spokesman for Hardy released a statement saying, “The science speaks for itself that there is no environmental reason to deny a special recreation permit for this race. But outside special interest groups and some complicit federal officials are attempting to rig this decision to circumvent the public planning process and appease political allies.  This administration has a track record of using the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process to advance its own agenda irrespective of law or science. We cannot stand by and allow politically motivated insiders to throw out the results of a rigorous environmental assessment prepared by career professionals.”

The Hardy/Amodie letter quotes from the BLM’s 116-page Environmental Assessment, which says:

A portion of the Proposed Action race course passes through the Basin and Range National Monument. The Proposed Action is in conformance with the Presidential Proclamation that established the Monument. The Proclamation allows for motorized vehicle use on roads existing in the Monument as of its establishment, July 10, 2015, consistent with the care and management of the objects of scientific and historic interest identified in the Proclamation. All of the roads proposed for portions of the event within the Monument existed prior to that date.

The congressmen’s letter states, “To deny the SRP (Special Recreation Permit) along the proposed route after the EA (Environmental Assessment) found that the race was not in violation of the proclamation would mean the BLM has abandoned its mandate in favor of appeasing special interests.”

The letter concludes by taking a shot at the very concept of unilaterally dictating local land use from an office in Washington:

The BLM has three options: Let the race continue as planned. Reroute to avoid the national monument. Deny the permit entirely.

 

Newspaper column: Jewell feels a drop of rain and declares sky is falling

Sally Jewell speaking about the “emergence of an extreme movement to seize public lands.”

Earlier this year Interior Secretary Sally Jewell delivered what could best be described as a doom and gloom speech about the state of disappearing “natural” lands in this country, primarily the West.

She claimed there is an “emergence of an extreme movement to seize public lands — from Oregon to Puerto Rico — putting lands that belong to all Americans at risk of being sold off for a short-term gain to the highest bidder. This movement has propped up dangerous voices that reject the rule of law, put communities and hard-working public servants at risk, and fail to appreciate how deeply democratic and American our national parks and public lands are.”

Communal ownership of vacant land is democratic? I thought there was another word for that.

That extreme movement must include the Nevada Legislature and a majority of Nevada’s Washington delegation, who have put forth modest efforts to transfer to the state control a little more than 10 percent of the federal public lands in the state — which currently amounts to about 85 percent of the state, the highest percentage of any state.

That extreme movement must include the voters of Nevada, who in 1996 voted to remove from the state Constitution the so-called Disclaimer Clause, in which the residents of the Nevada Territory in 1864 agreed that the residents of the state of Nevada would forgo forever all claim to unappropriated land inside its borders.

Jewell claimed that an analysis by a non-profit group found that natural areas in the West are disappearing at the rate of a football field every two and a half minutes.

“If you add that all up, you’re looking at a pretty bleak picture,” she warned. “If we stay on this trajectory, 100 years from now, national parks and wildlife refuges will be like postage stamps of nature on a map. Isolated islands of conservation with run-down facilities that crowds of Americans visit like zoos to catch a glimpse of our nation’s remaining wildlife and undeveloped patches of land.”

In a mere century we will have paved paradise and put up a parking lot!

According to the Congressional Research Service, there are 623 million acres of land in this country controlled by various federal agencies — Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, Park Service and Department of Defense. If one bulldozed a football field-sized tract every two and half minutes, why there would be no federal land left in a mere 2,700 years.

The Congressional Research Service noted that over a 24-year period from 1990 through 2013 total federal land acreage did decline by 3.6 percent, mostly from the sale of BLM and Defense property, while the other agencies actually grew in land mass. This occurred while the population of the United States grew by 26 percent.

Over the same 24-year period, total federal land holdings in Nevada also declined, but by only 0.6 percent. This while the population of the state grew by 133 percent. At that rate, there would be no federally controlled land in Nevada in a mere 4,325 years.

Of course, Jewell also took the opportunity of this speech to implore Congress to give her more money so she can better “manage” these rapidly disappearing holdings.

A report from the Nevada Public Land Management Task Force, which was created by the Nevada Legislature, noted that the BLM loses 91 cents an acre on the land it controls, but in the four states that have public trust land revenues amounted to $28.59 per acre. The report estimated that Nevada could net $114 million by taking over just 4 million acres of the BLM’s 48 million acres. Taking over all 48 million acres could net the state more than $1.5 billion — nearly half the annual general fund budget.

Meanwhile in Washington, a year ago Rep. Mark Amodei introduced a bill calling for transferring federal land to the state in phases. The initial phase would authorize the state to select no less than 7.2 million acres of public land for conveyance to Nevada.

More recently, Sens. Dean Heller and Harry Reid introduced a bill that would allow Pershing County, after 30 years of discussions, to consolidate checkerboard lands along the old railroad right of way with some becoming public and some private. Up to 150,000 acres would be sold for economic development while a similar acreage would be declared wilderness. It could be a model for other counties to pursue.

The bills are pending.

A version of this column appeared this week in many of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel and the Lincoln County Record — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Basin and Range National Monument seized by presidential fiat. (LA Times)

Editorial: Feds hand counties a tiny fraction of public land revenue

It is that time of year again. The Interior Department has just announced the paltry sums it will dole out this year to counties that have federal public lands from which they can collect no property taxes to support public services.

This year the feds are magnanimously returning to the counties a whopping $452 million in payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) out of the $11 billion they receive in revenue off those public lands – about 4 percent. That $11 billion is down from $14 billion in previous years, showing how poorly those lands are profitably managed. The money is generated from commercial activities such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing and timber harvesting.

“Rural communities contribute significantly to our nation’s economy, food and energy supply, and help define the character of our diverse and beautiful country,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell had the audacity to boast in a statement. “These investments (PILT) often serve as a lifeline for local communities as they juggle planning and paying for basic services like public safety, housing, social services and transportation.”

Since created by Congress in 1977 PILT payments have been calculated based on the number of acres of federal land within each county and its population.

This year Nevada is slated to get $25.6 million, up $400,000 from the previous year. Most counties will receive payments approximately the same as this past year, some more, some less.

Once again the PILT formula short changes Nevada compared to our neighboring states. Nevada is to get 45 cents an acre, up 4 cents from a year ago. Meanwhile, California is get $1.06 per acre, up 12 cents. Arizona is to get $1.24 an acre, up 12 cents. New Mexico, $1.69, up 15 cents. Utah, $1.17, up 12 cents.

If the states were allowed to control what are now federal lands, instead of getting 4 percent of the revenue, they could collect it all.

A report from the legislatively created Nevada Public Land Management Task Force noted a year ago that the Bureau of Land Management, a division of Interior, loses 91 cents an acre on land it controls, while the average income for the four states that have public trust land is $28.59 per acre. It also estimated the state could net $114 million by taking over just 4 million acres of BLM land, less than 10 percent.

For two years Rep. Mark Amodei has had pending a bill that calls for transferring federal land to the state in phases. The initial phase would authorize the state to select no less than 7.2 million acres of public land for conveyance to Nevada.

“These investments (PILT) are one of the ways the federal government can fulfill its role of being a good neighbor to local communities,” said Secretary Jewell in her statement.

Sounds more like paltry alms than a fair share to us.

A version of this editorial appears this past week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

NACo map for 2015
http://www.naco.org/advocacy/action-centers/payment-lieu-taxes-pilt

 

How the bureaucrats are conquering the West

One problem with the federal control of so much land in the West is that the bureaucrats are hell bent on expanding their domains.

That wildlife refuge in Oregon, where the Bundy brothers and like-minded protesters are camped out, has grown to double its original size in the past century, gobbling up ranches by hook and/or crook.

As I’ve reported previously, several years ago a high ranking executive with the Interior Department explained during a newspaper editorial board meeting that the unwritten policy of the agency was “acre-for-acre” — meaning that for every acre of federal land that was sold for private development, an acre of private land somewhere else should be purchased, so the agency holdings would never decline. This was not a policy to preserve the land, but one to preserve federal jobs and the power of the executives.

In November, Obama put this policy in writing. In a presidential memoranda to the various agencies that control federal land, Obama told the agencies they “should establish a net benefit goal or, at a minimum, a no net loss goal for natural resources the agency manages …” To the bureaucrats, “no net loss” doubtlessly is “acre-for-acre” writ in stone.

On Wednesday, an Interior Department press release confirmed this stance.

“U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today announced the U.S. Department of the Interior will invest $39.1 million from the sale of public lands in Southern Nevada to fund more than 40 projects to improve recreation, reduce the risk of wildfires, conserve sensitive landscapes and restore important wildlife habitat throughout the state,” the press release opens.

Sally Jewell

The key is that a third of that money — $12.2 million — will be spent on “Environmentally Sensitive Land Acquisitions.”

Under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998 the feds must sell off 74,000 acres in Clark County for private and public development, half of which already has been sold or transferred.

But Interior plans use those funds to buy still more land and take it out off the tax rolls.

What do you bet the number of acres sold for urban development at the price of $39 million will allow the agency to buy an equal number, or greater, of acres in more rural settings?

James Q. Wilson, the Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at the Pepperdine University, explains in “The Rise of the Bureaucratic State“:

By viewing bureaucracy as an inevitable (or, as some would put it, “functional”) aspect of society, we find ourselves attracted to theories that explain the growth of bureaucracy in terms of some inner dynamic to which all agencies respond and which makes all barely governable and scarcely tolerable. Bureaucracies grow, we are told, because of Parkinson’s Law: Work and personnel expand to consume the available resources. Bureaucracies behave, we believe, in accord with various other maxims, such as the Peter Principle: In hierarchical organizations, personnel are promoted up to that point at which their incompetence becomes manifest — hence, all important positions are held by incompetents. More elegant, if not essentially different, theories have been propounded by scholars. The tendency of all bureaus to expand is explained by William A. Niskanen by the assumption, derived from the theory of the firm, that “bureaucrats maximize the total budget of their bureau during their tenure” — hence, “all bureaus are too large.” What keeps them from being not merely too large but all-consuming is the fact that a bureau must deliver to some degree on its promised output, and if it consistently under delivers, its budget will be cut by unhappy legislators. But since measuring the output of a bureau is often difficult — indeed, even conceptualizing the output of the State Department is mind-boggling — the bureau has a great deal of freedom within which to seek the largest possible budget.

It spends that budget to accrue more power and a large dominion.

 

 

Editorial: State and counties should continue federal land use litigation

Proposed greater sage grouse habitat plan map by BLM.

Gov. Brian Sandoval’s negotiations with the Interior Department’s Secretary Sally Jewell reached some compromises that provide some relief from the draconian land use plans the department promulgated after deciding the greater sage grouse did not need to be listed under the Endangered Species Act after all, but more needs to be done to protect Nevada business and recreation and safety.

For example, Sandoval boasted in a press release, “Secretary Jewell committed to resolve the issues impacting the water tank in Baker by early next year in a manner that maintains public health and safety. I am confident that following our direct conversation, the Secretary fully understands the importance of the water tank to the community of Baker. I stressed the significance of a prompt decision for the sake of the health and safety of the community and the Department of the Interior committed that a timeline and a path forward will be determined by next week.”

Sandoval meets with Jewell in April on the topic of sage grouse. (AP file photo)

The residents of the tiny community of Baker at the entrance to Great Basin National Park had run into resistance from Bureau of Land Management officials when they applied for permission to replace a decades-old, 250,000-gallon leaking water storage tank located on a BLM right of way. There were fears that the leak might result in contamination of the water supply or put the community firefighting capability at risk for its approximately 100 users.

The town’s water board feared delays could jeopardize its state loan under the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act, without which they could not afford the replacement.

A BLM representative had told them an expensive and time-consuming environmental impact statement would be needed due to new grouse regulations.

The board said at the time, “It is imperative that we complete this project prior to the start of summer when water consumption increases dramatically and the official fire season starts.”

This past week a BLM spokesman told The Associated Press the agency has authorized the right-of-way. “Construction of the tank will begin next year following the greater sage-grouse breeding and nesting season and in a manner that maintains public health and safety,” the BLM agent said in a statement, meaning construction cannot begin until July, well past the time it is most urgently needed.

But Sandoval, who had opposed a state and county lawsuit to resolve the land use issues, blithely told the AP, “Some of these issues that are stuck in litigation — it could be years before we have some finality on some of these. This Baker water tank is ‘Exhibit A.’ We may be able to resolve this before there is even a decision,” apparently unaware of how his compromise compromises the health and safety of the community for many months.

But that is not all, in a letter to Sandoval, Elko County Commission Chairman Demar Dahl said the compromise still does too much damage to rural Nevada, especially his county which “bears the burden of the Nevada Sagebrush Focal Areas (SFA) because roughly 2 million acres of the 2.8 million acre SFA are located in northern Elko County. The land use prohibitions in the SFA for mineral exploration and mining, development of wind and solar energy projects, oil and gas exploration, and severe restrictions on grazing have put 25 percent of Elko County off limits to economic uses.”

Dahl went on the say the land use plans will jeopardize the China Mountain Wind Energy Project and cost the county $500 million. Also threatened are nascent mining projects in the Gravel Creek and Jarbidge areas. He said the Gravel Creek gold deposits are estimated to be worth $3 billion.

Dahl noted that Sandoval’s discussions with Jewell failed to address the greatest danger to sage gouse and their habitat, which is wildfire. “Elko County,” the commissioner wrote, “provided the agencies with credible scientific data that managed grazing is the most cost effective way to reduce wildfire risks. Yet our input was ignored.”

There is also a question of whether the agreement with Interior Department is binding on the Department of Agriculture, which is over the Forest Service, which has jurisdiction over surfaces areas.

Of course, there is the question of whether Jewell’s agreement is binding on future Interior secretaries, whereas a court ruling would be binding.

Dahl’s letter concludes that Elko and the other counties involved in the lawsuit have “no choice but to continue to fight for our rights in court.”

We urge the counties and the state attorney general to press on in court.

A version of this editorial appears this past week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Update: This past week a motion was filed in the federal litigation addressing the Baker water tank situation. AP reports:

Laura Granier, lead attorney for the counties, said Baker and White Pine County officials were kept in the dark until the two politicians announced to the media they had “negotiated a resolution.”

“Secretary Jewell and Governor Sandoval have orchestrated what at first appeared to be the … happy ending to a vexing situation for BLM,” she wrote in a brief filed Wednesday. “However, upon closer examination, BLM’s fast-tracked … amendment contains rigid and unworkable seasonal constraints that impose several months of delay and only give Baker four months to complete a 12-month project.”

Newspaper column: To ‘negotiate’ with feds, you have to speak their language

Sandoval and Laxalt disagree on how to challenge Interior Department land use plans to protect greater sage grouse

Will the real Brian Sandoval please stand up?

This past week the Nevada governor stood virtually alone in rebuking Attorney General Adam Laxalt for joining in a lawsuit seeking to block Interior Department plans to enforce draconian land use restrictions to protect the vast habitat of the greater sage grouse across 11 Western states.

“Prematurely embroiling the state in costly litigation at this juncture threatens to compromise future collaborative efforts to implement the Nevada plan developed over the last four years …” says a statement released by Sandoval’s spokeswoman while he was out of the country. “The governor believes that joining a lawsuit now will chill ongoing discussions …”

How do you chill “discussions” that have been frozen solid?

In July in a 12-page letter to the acting head of the state Bureau of Land Management, John Ruhs, the same Brian Sandoval railed that the state had been stonewalled and ignored in efforts to draft plans for protecting sage grouse. He noted that the final 3,500-page land use plan released in May left unresolved, dismissed or ignored issues raised by the state.

Ruhs

Sandoval wrote that the plan “contains many new elements that disregard best science, Nevada’s state and local plans, and federal law. It is disappointing that this process has changed from a collaborative, proactive approach, to a now heavy-handed, federal approach that uses status-quo approaches and relies primarily on information from federal officials in Washington, D.C. …”

The acting director replied within a week with vague promises of clarifications and a couple of “respectfully declines to adopt.”

Sandoval fired off an appeal to the head of the BLM calling the state director’s response “specious in nature and nearly identical to the text used” in previous denials.

Five weeks later the head of the BLM, Neil Kornze, a former aide to Harry Reid, wrote the governor, “I … respectfully deny your appeal,” though he did “look forward to our continued coordination …”

Kornze

Now Sandoval thinks he can negotiate with the same people who have repeatedly dismissed, ignored, snubbed and denied his every entreaty?

Laxalt is speaking the Interior Department’s language. These Washington bureaucrats live by sue and settle. That’s how we got the September deadline for listing grouse as endangered or not — a settled lawsuit from self-styled conservation groups.

A funny thing happened on the way to the listing. Interior discovered the grouse are not endangered. The agency stated that “the charismatic rangeland bird does not warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act,” because its population has stabilized.

Instead, without the legal nicety of listing, Interior immediately announced arbitrary land use restrictions.

The next day Elko and Eureka counties and two mining companies filed a federal lawsuit. This past week Laxalt filed an amended suit that added as plaintiffs the state, seven more counties — Churchill, Humboldt, Lander, Lincoln, Pershing, Washoe and White Pine — another mining company and a Humboldt ranch. An initial hearing is scheduled for Nov. 12.

The suit accuses Interior of violating the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, the General Mining Laws, the Taylor Grazing Act and numerous other federal laws and agreements. The mining companies and the ranch say new restrictions could put them out of business.

In a press release announcing the litigation, Laxalt noted that the federal plan bars mineral exploration and development on 3 million acres within Nevada alone and creates restrictions on grazing and public access on more than 16 million acres in the state.

The decision to sue was applauded by Sen. Dean Heller, the state’s three Republican representatives, numerous local elected officials and business leaders.

Rep. Mark Amodei declared, “When the Department of the Interior completely ignores input from Nevada’s Environmental Impact Statement, I believe no tool should be left in the shed, and one of those tools is litigation.”

Rep. Cresent Hardy agreed, “Those who live closest to the land are the best stewards of it. This has been proven particularly true in Nevada, where locally driven conservation efforts helped keep the sage grouse off of the endangered species list. But the federal government is actively choosing to ignore that reality.”

Rep. Joe Heck, who is running for the Senate seat now held by Reid, observed that Nevadans developed a plan to protect sage grouse habitat, but “that plan was rejected by bureaucrats at the Department of the Interior who have no connection to the land and won’t have to deal with the consequences of their land-use plan.”

Laxalt is speaking Interior’s language, governor.

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Update: U.S. attorney replies to suit and basically threatens to reopen potential to list greater sage grouse as endangered.

The suit: Nevada v Dept of Interior Am Complaint

Newspaper column: Nevada wins grouse listing battle, or did it?

This past week Interior Secretary Sally Jewell declared that the greater sage grouse will not be listed under the Endangered Species Act, but instead created a federal land use plan so restrictive that the lack of listing became a distinction without a difference.

“Our review of the best available scientific and commercial information indicates that the sage grouse is not in danger of extinction nor likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all of its range,” the Fish and Wildlife Service, a division of the Interior, concluded in its 341-page announcement. The document cited a rangewide decline in grouse over the past century, while conceding a count of male grouse in leks showed a 63 percent increase in the past two years.

Instead of listing, to protect sage grouse Fish and Wildlife withdrew 10 million acres from future mining claims, prohibited oil and gas drilling near breeding grounds and imposed new reviews on grazing permits.

Male sage grouse (BLM photo)

The cactus huggers still had a conniption. John Horning, executive director of WildEarth Guardians, spewed, “That is the great tragedy of the day, that this decision would be based on politics not science,” adding that his group will challenge the listing decision in federal court.

Elko and Eureka counties and two mining companies beat them to the courthouse door, filing suit in federal court in Reno the next day, calling the plan “arbitrary, capricious and unlawful.” Elko estimated the plan would cost its economy $31 million a year. Eureka estimated the cost to its livestock industry alone would be $7 million to $15 million a year. (Land use suit)

Rep. Crescent Hardy sent out a press release putting the decision into perspective, noting that the good news about listing comes with hard to swallow restrictions.

“I was very disappointed to learn of the Department of Interior’s decision to aggressively advance an agenda that puts the interests of a small contingent of environmental extremists over those of rural Nevada’s hardworking families,” Hardy said. “Today’s announcement confirms this was never fully about protecting any particular species.”

The congressman continued, “This is yet another stark reminder of the challenges Western states like Nevada face when the federal government controls so much of the land within our borders. … Without access to traditional land uses in Nevada — mineral exploration, energy extraction, and ranching — states like Nevada wouldn’t be what they are today. This policy not only disregards our historic way of life, but it also threatens the local economies of some of the hardest hit areas from the Great Recession.”

Nevada’s junior Sen. Dean Heller agreed with Hardy’s dire assessment, saying the regulations that will limit the use of millions of acres of federal land, much of that in Nevada.

“This is not a win for Nevada. Even though the Fish and Wildlife Service has decided the greater sage grouse doesn’t merit protections under the Endangered Species Act, the Department of the Interior’s final ‘federal plans’ pose major threats to many Nevadans’ long-term way of life and success,” Heller concluded.

“This has been an issue of the Department of the Interior using the threat of a listing to get what it really wanted all along: limiting Nevadans’ access to millions of acres of land equal to the size of the state of West Virginia,” the senator said.

Instead of addressing the real threats to grouse habitat — wildfire, invasive species, and wild horse and burro mismanagement — new regulations simply restrict Nevadans’ beneficial access to public lands, Heller noted.

A spokesman for Rep. Mark Amodei said he had nothing new to say at this time, but reiterated what he told the Reno newspaper a month ago, when he said economic development will be strangled across some 3 million acres of Northern Nevada.

“It’s an exclusion zone, you can’t do anything,” Amodei told the Reno Gazette-Journal’s editorial board. “It doesn’t matter if it’s listed or not. Now it’s the regulatory standard across the West.”

The ever irrelevant and clueless Harry Reid poked Nevadans in the eye with this nonsense: “This conservation not only protects the sage grouse, it also protects our rangelands, our mule deer and pronghorn antelope habitat and our western way of life. I look forward to continued cooperation between the federal agencies, states and local governments on implementing the sage grouse management plans and making sure that the sage grouse can thrive alongside our western economies.”

Cooperation? Thrive?

Nevada’s success in avoiding the listing of the sage grouse turned out to be a hollow victory.

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

 

Economy of the West dodges a bullet as greater sage grouse not listed — or did it?

Male sage grouse (BLM photo)

Considering the propensity of federal bureaucrats to ignore the citizens and accumulate more and more power to themselves, I did not see this coming. Today the Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that the greater sage grouse will NOT be listed under the Endangered Species Act. She credited conservation efforts across the West.

“Our review of the best available scientific and commercial information indicates that the sage-grouse is not in danger of extinction nor likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all of its range,” the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded in its usual bureaucratic redundancy in a concise 341-page announcement. (Do they get paid by the word?) “Additionally, we determined that the sage-grouse is not in danger of extinction now or within the foreseeable future throughout either the Rocky Mountain or Great Basin portions of its range. Therefore, the sage-grouse is not in danger of extinction nor likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout a significant portion of its range. Therefore, we find that listing the sage-grouse as an endangered or threatened species under the Act is not warranted at this time.”

This was immediately followed by a warning caveat that state and local officials should pay close heed to: “Our determination today is based on the best scientific and commercial data currently available. That determination, however, cannot guarantee that the sage-grouse (or other sagebrush ecosystem species) will not in the future warrant listing under the Act.”

With that in mind Gov. Brian Sandoval said, ““I am cautiously optimistic that this is good news for Nevada and I am pleased that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has come to this decision, but there is more work to be done. I am asking all local, state and federal leaders including the Sagebrush Ecosystem Council to stay at the table to resolve some key issues and continue their strong advocacy for implementation of Nevada’s plan. We will closely monitor the implementation of this decision so that every option remains available to our state.”

Of course the cactus huggers had a conniption. John Horning, executive director of WildEarth Guardians, spewed, “That is the great tragedy of the day, that this decision would be based on politics not science,” adding that his group will challenge the decision in federal court.

But Rep. Crescent Hardy’s office sent out a press release noting that the good news still comes with a some hard to swallow restrictions, such as the decision to finalize a land use plan to protect sage grouse, even though it is not to be listed.

“I was very disappointed to learn of the Department of Interior’s decision to aggressively advance an agenda that puts the interests of a small contingent of environmental extremists over those of rural Nevada’s hardworking families,” Hardy said. “Today’s announcement confirms this was never fully about protecting any particular species.

“This is yet another stark reminder of the challenges Western states like Nevada face when the federal government controls so much of the land within our borders. Despite controlling 84 percent of the greater-sage grouse’s range in our state, the federal government has chosen to punish our communities for its own mismanagement by severely restricting every Nevadan’s access to our public lands. Without access to traditional land uses in Nevada — mineral exploration, energy extraction, and ranching — states like Nevada wouldn’t be what they are today. This policy not only disregards our historic way of life, but it also threatens the local economies of some of the hardest hit areas from the Great Recession.”

Editorial: Nevada should control its land and not settle for paltry alms

Esmeralda County gets only 6 cents per acre in PILT money.

The silence is deafening.

Because so much of the West in general and Nevada in particular is controlled by the federal government and cannot be taxed, Congress four decades ago came up with a program called Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT). Each year about this time the U.S. government writes checks to counties to compensation for lost tax revenue.

A year ago Nevada’s Democratic Sen. Harry Reid issued a press release bragging about all the money Nevada was getting, pointing out that “Nevada’s PILT payments rose roughly $2.1 million from $23.3 million to $25.4 million.”

“PILT funding has a remarkable impact for Nevada counties,” said Reid a year ago. “Over 85 percent of the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government, making it essential that Nevada receive its fair share. These funds support rural communities across Nevada in funding high-quality education, law enforcement, and healthcare systems. I have worked hard to make sure that these crucial programs are fully-funded, and I am grateful that Congress was able to extend these provisions this year. I will work to ensure PILT is again funded for this upcoming fiscal year.”

This year no press release. Perhaps that’s because the Nevada checks this year amount to only $23.26 million, less than two years ago. Nationally PILT payouts are off by $32 million, down to $405 million from $437 million a year ago.

In a press release Interior Secretary Sally Jewell proclaimed, “PILT payments are critical for maintaining essential public services, such as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search and rescue operations.”

The very next paragraph of the press release, without a hint of awareness of its miserly scope, reports that the “Interior Department collects about $14 billion in revenue annually from commercial activities on federal lands, such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing and timber harvesting,” and shares some royalties with the states.

So, the agency collects $14 billion from land that could well be held by the states, counties or private citizens and then magnanimously doles out less than 3 percent in PILT.

The state Legislature this year passed a bill urging Congress to turn over some of the federal land to the state.

A report from the Nevada Public Land Management Task Force noted that the BLM loses 91 cents an acre on land it controls, while the average income for the four states that have public trust land is $28.59 per acre. It also estimated the state could net $114 million by taking over just 4 million acres of BLM land, less than 10 percent. Taking over all 48 million acres could net the state more than $1.5 billion — nearly half the annual general fund budget.

Earlier this year Rep. Mark Amodei introduced H.R.1484 — Honor the Nevada Enabling Act of 1864 Act. The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources, where its co-sponsor, Rep. Cresent Hardy, sits. The bill calls for transferring federal land to the state in phases. The initial phase would authorize the state to select no less than 7.2 million acres of public land for conveyance to Nevada.

In addition to being paltry the PILT checks are high inequitable, varying wildly in payment per acre from state to state and county to county.

Remember, Reid said it was “essential that Nevada receive its fair share.”

While Nevada will get 41 cents per acre this year, California this year will rake in 96 cents per acre, Arizona gets $1.13, New Mexico fetches $1.54 and Utah’s share is $1.05.

The calculations also account for population, which probably explains why tiny Esmeralda County here in Nevada nets 6 cents an acre, while Lyon gets $2.20 per acre and Washoe $1.07. Other county payments will be: White Pine, 41 cents; Elko 40 cents; Eureka, 15 cents; Lincoln, 12 cents; Lander, 26 cents; Mineral, 33 cents.

Reid has had time to send out press releases praising the Supreme Court for upholding ObamaCare and overturning anti-gay marriage laws and praising Homeland Defense for not detaining illegal alien families, but not PILT.

We urge our congressional delegation to move forward with legislation to turn federal land over to Nevada so the state taxpayers can profit from it instead of settling for paltry handouts.

A version of this editorial appears this past week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Newspaper column: Let states continue efforts to protect sage grouse without listing

Greater sage grouse

Perhaps there is still hope that aggressive conservation and mitigation efforts by Nevada and the 10 other states where greater sage grouse range can stave off a listing of the ground-dwelling birds under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a decision that would have an economic impact on mining, agriculture, logging, oil and gas exploration, rights of way, electricity transmission lines and recreation.

The latest ray of hope comes from a decision by the Interior and Agriculture departments this past week to withdraw a proposal to list the bi-state sage grouse under ESA. In October the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to designate as threatened the distinct sage grouse population found along the northern California-Nevada border.

The original plan was to set aside nearly 1.9 million acres in Carson City, Lyon, Douglas, Mineral and Esmeralda counties in Nevada, as well as land in Alpine, Mono and Inyo counties in California, as critical habitat for the remaining 5,000 or so bi-state sage grouse.

Fish and Wildlife opened a comment period and then extended it when evidence came in that the bi-state grouse population was healthier than first reported.

The deadline for a decision on the bi-state grouse was April 28. The deadline for a decision on the greater sage grouse is September of this year.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell credited the decision to relent on listing the bi-state grouse to local efforts to preserve habit and limit impact. “What’s more, the collaborative, science-based efforts in Nevada and California are proof that we can conserve sagebrush habitat across the West while we encourage sustainable economic development,” Jewell was quoted as saying in a press release.

Gov. Brian Sandoval said the “announcement highlights the critical partnerships that must exist for our conservation strategies to be effective and demonstrate that sage grouse and economic development can coexist in both the bi-state area and across the range of the greater sage grouse.”

When Sandoval makes the argument to not list the greater sage grouse he now has a 30-page “Sage-Grouse Inventory” published in March by the Western Governor’s Association listing various conservation efforts taking place in Nevada, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming to slap down on the table.

The inventory shows Sandoval has included $5.1 million in his fiscal year 2015-17 budget for sage grouse conservation efforts. Additionally, the Nevada Mining Association members have developed habitat conservation plans on 1.2 million acres.

Companies such as Noble Energy, which is exploring for oil and gas in Elko County, and other such companies are voluntarily restricting operations in ways that promote conservation.

Nevada’s Sagebrush Ecosystem Council has been meeting regularly for several years, working on implementing and building upon recommendations from the Governor’s Sage-Grouse Advisory Committee. Various state agencies have spent over $7.4 million since 2012 on greater sage grouse conservation.

Elko County alone has spent more than $100,000 “to provide greater sage grouse management, conservation, preservation and rehabilitation measures, strategies and funding sources to … benefit sage-grouse without the loss of the county’s heritage, culture and economy.” None of that was federal money.

Efforts are being made across the West to fight the encroachment on sagebrush range by pinyon and juniper, which should require little more than a herd of goats, a few chainsaws or brush hogs.

Earlier this month lawmakers in Carson City were pressing forward with Assembly Joint Resolution No. 2, which would address one of the major causes of sage grouse population declines. The resolution asks Congress to remove or alter protections under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 for the common raven. Raven populations have exploded across the West because development of power lines and fences and pinyon and juniper give the birds higher perches from which to spy and attack sage grouse nests to eat the eggs.

“A known cause of decline in the sage grouse population is egg depredation by the common raven, and research conducted at Idaho State University has suggested that reductions in the raven population significantly increase sage grouse nest success,” AJR2 reads in part

Sen. Pete Goicoechea, a Eureka Republican, said federal agencies permit killing a few ravens but not nearly enough.

Perhaps, all those coordinated efforts will sway Interior to give conservation efforts a chance.

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.