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Thursday, July 14, 2016
Utah Public Lands Bill a Disaster for Sage Grouse, Sane Energy Development
Bill Gives Control of Federal Fossil Fuel Decisions to State, Locks In Unsustainable Grazing
Contact: Erik Molvar, (307) 399-7910, emolvar@wildearthguardians.org
Additional Contact:
Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director, (303) 437-7663
WASHINGTON – Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) today unveiled his Utah Public Lands bill. Conservationists immediately blasted the legislation as extreme and filled with poison pill measures that guarantee environmental destruction of public lands at the hands of the livestock and fossil fuel industries.
“Representative Bishop’s extreme legislation would set the stage on a grand scale for environmental destruction of public lands that belong to every American, effectively putting the livestock and fossil fuel industries in control of our federal public lands,” said Erik Molvar, wildlife biologist with WildEarth Guardians.
One of the most disturbing provisions of the bill would prevent federal agencies from reducing cattle and sheep numbers from 2016 levels, even on rangelands that are known to be unhealthy due to overgrazing, or where current livestock grazing is incompatible with conserving sage grouse habitat under the federal plan amendment designed to protect key grouse habitats on public land that was adopted last September.
“Locking in livestock grazing at 2016 levels ensures that public lands will continue failing land health standards due to overgrazing, and will cripple efforts to provide adequate grass for sage grouse hiding cover in areas designated ‘Priority Habitats’ for sage grouse recovery,” continued Molvar . “Land managers need the flexibility to reduce livestock numbers if current grazing levels aren’t providing healthy wildlife habitat, particularly for sage grouse.”
The bill also would also fast-track energy development on the Utah lands with the largest deposits of federally-owned fossil fuels, and give the Governor of Utah the ability to seize control of permitting fossil fuel development on federally-owned public lands. This provision covers the Uinta Basin, already subject to extreme levels of oil and gas drilling, as well Utah’s major coal-mining regions.
“This is a reprehensible giveaway of our public lands and minerals to the fossil fuel industry,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program Director. “This isn’t reasonable legislation, it’s a bill that shamelessly throws Americans under the bus to prop up oil, gas, and coal companies.”
These problematic provisions are only a few of the poison pills in the bill, which also includes measures to prevent federal officials from adjusting domestic sheep grazing to prevent disease transmission to wild bighorns, and a measure that would re-open any federal decision that reduced livestock numbers to achieve healthier lands, so that a new decision on livestock numbers could be made solely on the basis of the economic considerations of the public-lands rancher.
“This is a bill that is so rife with anti-environmental poison pills that it is beyond salvaging,” said Molvar. “Congress should move swiftly and decisively to kill this effort to undermine responsible land stewardship.”
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