American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2016 - 101

ConventionCoverage: Petroleum Association of Wyoming
scale planning, Budd argued. He pointed
out Wyoming also must consider how the
sage grouse relied on habitat according to
the calendar, with the bird shifting from
eating bugs in wet meadows and stream
banks during the warmer months to spending the colder months relying on a sagebrush
diet in snow-covered pastures.
Wyoming's compensatory mitigation
strategy eschews advanced statistical modeling or tables that weigh benefits versus
costs, Budd said.
"You end with a very simple and
straightforward program that anybody
can follow and (know) what it will cost
to take (a particular) action," he offered.
"The other thing it does-and I think this
is one reason Wyoming has gotten as far
as it has-is force all of us to be very
honest about what we really are going to
do, not just this month, but over the next
five to 10 years."
Federal Policies
USFWS is seeking to revise its 1981
mitigation policy, Abbott said, describing
the changes as focusing on habitat areas
judged most important or highly valuable
to species. The original policy excluded
endangered species mitigation and took
a project-specific approach to assessing
habitat conditions, he described.
According to the agency, the proposed
change takes a landscape-scale approach
to achieve, if not a net gain in conservation
outcomes, then at least no net resource
loss. USFWS said the new policy, which
was released in March for public comment,
sought to establish an all-encompassing
approach to mitigation that would cover
all other habitat policies and strategies.
"Doing things on a project scale really
is not that effective," Abbott assessed
"When I think about what Wyoming is
doing, that sort of landscape perspective
is going to be the way we do business
going forward, so it is consistent with
new ways of thinking in terms of state
and federal agencies working together."
The new policy affirms USFWS's mitigation hierarchy: avoidance, minimization,
and then compensatory mitigation, he
said. It also puts USFWS on a common
path with BLM and Forest Service plans,
he added. The proposed policy includes
all government actions that have a federal
nexus-such as projects using federal funding. For nonfederal projects for which
the service has authority to make recommendations, such as those involving the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act, USFWS plays

LEFT: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
wants to revise its 1981 mitigation policy
to focus more on habitat areas judged
most important or highly valuable to
species, Tyler Abbott, USFWS ﬁeld supervisor, says in his remarks during the Petroleum Association of Wyoming's annual

a limited role in avoiding and minimizing
takes, Abbott said.
"We have a lot of authority to make
recommendations and a lot of authority
to work with our partners in trying to get
what we think needs to be implemented
on the ground, but Fish & Wildlife really
does not have a lot of authority to make
anybody do anything. So, the agency realizes that if it is ever going to get things
done, it will be by taking more of a partnership-based approach. Wyoming does
a great job of that," he praised.
Abbott admitted certain projects would
fail to satisfy the new policy's goal of
net conservation gain. In those cases, he
said USFWS and the stakeholders would
have to be honest and flexible about their
priorities, and recognize that there were
no ways to completely avoid an impact.
Turning to the Endangered Species
Act and its compensatory policy, Abbott
reported USFWS planned to release new
guidance in the near future. "This policy
was developed to fit within the broader
umbrella of the 1981 plan," he said. "As
long as we maintain the relationships we
have in Wyoming among the federal
agencies and our state partners and project
proponents, and we continue to work together, we will figure this out. On one
hand, I am anxious to see these policies
released; on the other hand, I have all the
confidence that we know how to do this."
Stakeholder Meetings
BLM's Rugwell said meetings between
oil and gas stakeholders and the agency
had been helpful in modifying its greater

convention. RIGHT: Bob Budd, executive
director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural
Resource Trust, warns PAW that some areas of the state's mitigation framework-
including issues related to net conservation
gain-are likely to cause friction between
state and federal agencies.

sage grouse plans. She told PAW that
BLM had written several versions of the
IMs, with a final one due by the end of
August.
"We have looked at many iterations,
but you really do not want to start planning
how to implement it until you have the
final product," Rugwell stated. "We are
looking forward to getting that so we can
see how that affects what all our field offices need to do in terms of oil and gas
leasing and development."
BLM continues to work on publishing
its record of decision on the Continental
Divide-Creston natural gas development
project, Rugwell said. According to the
agency, the project would add nearly
9,000 infill wells to the Wamsutter II and
Creston/Blue Gap gas fields west of Rawlins, Wy. BP America Production Co. is
seeking BLM approval for the project,
which includes satisfying the agency's
landscape-scale mitigation requirements.
According to BLM projections, the
infill project will produce 12.0 trillion
cubic feet of natural gas and 167.3 million
barrels of condensate during its 40-year
life.
"This has taken much longer than anyone thought it would. We are just as
excited as industry to get that thing over
the finish line," Rugwell said. "We had
to step back because BLM had been
working on mitigation policy, and that
still has not been rolled out in final form.
But mitigation had to be put into that
document in order for us to get approvals
above our level here in Wyoming."
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SEPTEMBER 2016 101

American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2016

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