American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2015 - 167

Endangered Species

Sage Grouse Plans Receive Little Love
By Bill Campbell

The Department of Interior in late May
released 14 final environmental impact
statements for proposed land-use plans in
10 Western states that it characterized as a
reasonable approach to protecting sage
grouse habitat and preventing an endangered listing for the greater sage grouse.
For the most part, oil and gas producer associations aren't buying it.
Kathleen Sgamma, vice president for
government and public affairs for the
Western Energy Alliance, describes the
plans as a top-down approach that largely ignores good mapping and data from the
affected states.
Dan Naatz, senior vice president for
government relations and political affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America, concurs, saying,
"These plans, with their significant new
limitations on land use, appear to fly in the
face of the meaningful conservation efforts
already under way in the range states."
According to a Bureau of Land Management fact sheet, it and the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service intend to focus sage
grouse-protection efforts on minimizing
new or additional surface disturbance, improving habitat conditions, and reducing
the threat of rangeland fire.
The agencies describe a tiered approach that places the highest protections
on Sagebrush Focal Areas (SFAs), which
they define as "important landscape blocks
with high breeding population densities,
high quality sagebrush habitat, and a preponderance of federal ownership or protected area that serves to anchor the conservation value of the landscape."
The second tier, the agencies continue,
is Priority Habitat Management Areas
(PHMAs), which will be "managed to
avoid and minimize further disturbance."
The third tier is General Habitat Management Areas, in which BLM and USFWS
say they will "provide greater flexibility
for land use activities."
Specific to oil and gas, BLM says, "The
plans will prioritize future leasing and development outside of Priority and General Habitat Management areas."
It adds, "In states without a demonstrated all-lands regulatory approach to managing disturbance, the BLM will require
no-surface-occupancy measures in new
federal oil and gas leases in SFAs, and with
exceptions, in PHMAs."
In addition, BLM says the plans identify minimum buffers around sage grouse

leks "as areas in which disturbances
should be limited or eliminated."
Where companies have existing leases in habitat management areas, BLM says
it "will require and ensure mitigation
that provides a net conservation gain to the
species by avoiding, minimizing and
compensating for unavoidable impacts
from development."

State Conservation Plans
BLM contends its sage grouse plans
"build on the foundation for conservation
initiated by a number of states, including
Wyoming's core area strategy."
The Western Energy Alliance begs to
differ, responds Sgamma. With the possible exception of Wyoming, she says,
"DOI's information doesn't line up with
state data. That is something we have
pointed out again and again with our Data
Quality Act challenges and comments on
each of the plans."
The one exception may be Wyoming,
which Sgamma suggests "got more of a
pass."
Petroleum Association of Wyoming
Vice President Esther Wagner agrees,
although she emphasized in mid-June
that the association still was reviewing plan
details. "We are finding there was a significant effort for these plans to be consistent with the Wyoming executive order,"
Wagner said, noting that PAW supported
the executive order.
Sgamma points out that Wyoming's
sage grouse conservation efforts are more
mature than those in other states. "But that
doesn't mean the other states have done
nothing," she maintains, citing as examples Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and
Montana.
"There is a lot of good work being done
on the ground to protect the sage grouse,"
she says. "Even the Democratic governors
are very disappointed that DOI is not deferring to their state plans."
Again referring to the BLM plans as a
top-down rather than bottom-up approach,
Sgamma cites as an example the lek buffers,
which she describes as blanket radii that label entire areas as SFAs or PHMAs without considering whether they are all suitable
habitat. "With variations in topography, the
high country may be suitable, for example,
but down in the canyons it is not sage grouse
habitat anymore," she illustrates.
Development Restrictions
In a press conference held in Cheyenne,
Wy., to announce the sage grouse plans,

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell touted
them as a balanced approach that protected the bird while allowing continued development, according to press accounts.
"Ninety percent of the lands with high and
medium oil and gas potential are still on
the table for development because they are
outside of priority habitat areas," Jewell
is quoted.
Not so fast, Sgamma again insists.
"DOI is relying on very out-of-date data
that don't really take into account advances
in technology and better geophysical information," she charges.
Commenting that, "Eight years ago we
didn't know the potential of the Bakken,"
Sgamma says, "I look at it as strangling
the next big shale play on public lands. The
Mancos Shale in western Colorado and
northwestern New Mexico is a great example. A lot of companies would like to
explore and develop the Mancos, but
they can't get access because it is predominantly on federal lands.
"Yes, DOI can say there isn't anything
'here,' because we can't access those
lands to develop and explore. It's a perennial problem with Interior," she holds.
And technically accessible doesn't
equate to economically viable, points out
Luke D. Johnson, a policy director for
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in
Washington, and former BLM deputy director during the George W. Bush administration. He says the distinction government assessments often overlook is that it
may not be economically viable to develop certain resources, even though they are
technically accessible utilizing advanced
technology.
"With regard to oil and gas resources,
the right policy question when evaluating
any land use plan, together with other access issues, is whether the resource is rendered uneconomic at almost any commodity price expectation," Johnson insists.
"Whether the resource can be reached
technically is the wrong question. If the resource is never accessed because it has
been rendered uneconomic, it doesn't really matter whether someone can argue
that it is technically possible. That often
is lost in policy debates about access on
federal lands."
Taking that into account, Samantha
McDonald, manager of government relations for IPAA, suggests it is somewhat
disingenuous for DOI to claim that 90 percent of oil and gas resources on federal
lands are available for development. "It is
easier to sell to the public if you don't get
JULY 2015 167
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