American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2015 - 123

ConventionCoverage: Petroleum Association of Wyoming
revised," he reported. "These are likely
to occur during the course of the next
year."
One federal development that some
participants suggested offered reason for
optimism dealt with the USFWS's decision
to consider creating the equivalent of an
incidental take permit or other regulatory

mechanism under the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act. According to Mathes, in
many jurisdictions, USFWS's enforcement
prohibits takes of any migratory bird, regardless of how the take occurs.
He reported the service has undertaken
an environmental impact statement and
rule-making process to establish a regu-

latory mechanism that may allow for unintentional takes, assuming other conditions are met.
"Right now, in many jurisdictions,
there is simply no way around the raptor
stipulations and takes, so this could be
beneficial, depending on the details,"
Mathes assessed.
❒

Governors' Group Seeks ESA Reform
CASPER, WY.-If the Endangered
Species Act exists to save species and
eventually recover their populations to
safe levels, it has failed. It has, however,
proven successful at hindering land-use
activities, chilling economic development,
and prompting hordes of lawsuits.
That was a theme of the remarks
Wyoming Governor Matt Mead offered
during the luncheon on the final day of
the Petroleum Association of Wyoming's
2015 annual convention, held Aug. 2526 at the Plaza Parkway Hotel in Casper.
Mead used his keynote remarks to indicate
that he was making ESA reform the chief
initiative of his chairmanship of the Western Governors' Association.
When the ESA was adopted in 1973,
its focus was to identify threatened or
endangered species and provide for their
recovery, the governor recounted. "So
they are listed, and once they are recovered, they are taken off the list," he described.
According to Mead, since enactment,
2,280 species have received ESA listings,
of which only 59 have been delisted.
From those, 19 dropped from the list because the listing decision was based on
faulty data.
"Of those remaining, 10 went extinct,"
he detailed. "Only 30 have been delisted
because they recovered. That means of all
the species listed, roughly 1 percent ever
have been (successfully) delisted. I don't
care what business you are in or what
kind of math you do, that is not success.
"The WGA is going to work with all
the states, and I hope we can make meaningful changes to the ESA," he added.
"It is time, because 1 percent simply
does not cut it."
Perpetual Status
ESA's failure actually has been detrimental to wildlife that would merit protection, if not for the resources devoted
to other species, Mead suggested. "If you

spend all your time listing (species) and
never take them off, who is worrying
about the species that probably should
be listed?" he posed.
The other cost is tougher to calculate,
he continued. "What are the opportunity
costs to counties, states and the country
of putting all these things on the list
without any meaningful way of getting
them off?" he asked.
Mead offered as a case study what
happened when he joined with other officials and stakeholders in a cooperative
effort with the Department of Interior to
delist the gray wolf in Wyoming. "We
reached an agreement based on the fact
the wolves were more than fully recovered," he recalled. "It was working well."
Unfortunately, he observed, in September 2014, a federal judge in Wash-

Reforming the Endangered Species Act
will be his top initiative as chairman of
the Western Governors' Association
Wyoming Governor Matt Mead tells PAW.
Mead offered his remarks during the
luncheon on the final day of PAW's annual
convention, held Aug. 25-26 at the Plaza
Parkway Hotel in Casper, Wy.

ington renewed the gray wolf's ESA
status, despite acknowledgements in her
decision that the species was thriving.
"Even when you have a species everyone-including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service-agrees is more than recovered,
you cannot get it off the list," Mead
mused. "Even if you want to help a
species, good luck getting it delisted."
During remarks earlier that morning,
U.S. Senator Mike Enzi also recalled
what happened with the gray wolf. "The
judge actually said Wyoming's plan was
marvelous and that the number of wolves
in Wyoming had increased while the human/animal conflicts had decreased," the
senator described. "But she struck it down
because she said she was not sure it was
a sufficiently permanent solution."
Enzi also discussed how, decades ago
when he was a state legislator, the grizzly
bear population had recovered to the
point lawmakers had voted to allow the
bear to be hunted under the assumption
the species would be delisted. "Twenty
years later it still has not been," he remarked.

Compare And Contrast
In another presentation, Jerimiah Rieman, Mead's natural resource policy director, contrasted the economic impacts
of Wyoming's core area strategy (see
accompanying story), on which the state's
greater sage grouse conservation policy
is based, with the implications of a
prospective ESA listing. He cited an
analysis from the University of Wyoming
that indicated a listing would hit extractive
industries especially hard, calling the
numbers "pretty staggering (for) oil, gas
and mining."
Rieman said roughly 67 percent of
Wyoming's producing wells-81.7 percent
of Wyoming's gas production and 68.9
percent of its oil output-fell within areas
that would face ESA restrictions in the
event of a sage grouse listing.
OCTOBER 2015 123



American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2015

Contents
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