5 minute read
News updates from the Natural Resources Policy Director
Wolf status to be reviewed in Idaho, West
After the Idaho Legislature’s approval of the new law designed to improve wolf management, it came as no surprise that environmental activists and wolf advocacy groups used the law as their rationale to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list gray wolves in the Western U.S. as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
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The ESA allows anyone, at the mere cost of a postage stamp, to petition for a listing under the act, which sets in motion a process whereby Fish and Wildlife has 90 days to determine whether a listing may be warranted. Because the 90-day determination requires a very low bar of the petitioners, it also came as little surprise, though some disappointment, that in September, Fish and Wildlife announced it would move forward with a 12-month status review of the species.
The rationale for moving forward was based on the petitioners’ claims that “potential increases in human-caused mortality may pose a threat to the gray wolf in the western U.S. The Service also finds that new regulatory mechanisms in Idaho and Montana may be inadequate to address this threat.”
At the end of the yearlong review, FWS will determine whether listing of wolves is warranted. We remain confident that because Idaho’s wolf population remains 10 times the amount required by Fish and Wildlife in our wolf management plan, it will ultimately find that listing is not warranted. ICA will be working with our state partners to ensure that adequate information is presented that shows Idaho’s ever-burgeoning wolf population is not threatened.
NEPA updates to be undone
In 2020, the Trump administration announced finalization of efforts to update and simplify the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA is the law that requires federal agencies to assess environmental impacts of their actions. Though well-intended, like many other federal laws, it has become overgrown and has been abused over the years by activist organizations to stall land management activities and restrict land use. Consequently, the 2020 regulations provided some much-needed standardization and streamlining. Now, the Biden administration has announced it will undertake a two-phase revision to the revisions. Phase One would reinstate consideration of the “direct,” “indirect” and “cumulative” impacts of a proposed decision, returning federal consideration to pre-2020 standards. NEPA consideration would also now include evaluation of climate change impacts and impacts on overburdened communities.
Phase Two will be a broader NEPA reconsideration related to environmental justice, public involvement and consistency across agencies. A public comment period on the revisions will close on Nov. 21. The ICA will again be commenting on the need for a streamlined NEPA process and the burdens that it placed on Idaho’s cattle ranching families in its pre-2020 form, particularly on those who are reliant upon the completion of NEPA processes to graze livestock on their federal land allotments.
BY KAREN WILLIAMS ICA Natural Resources Policy Director
State grazing rate change postponed
This summer, the Idaho Department of Lands proposed a new grazing rate structure at the request of the Idaho Land Board. The new proposal created a formula based on private lands lease rates minus the assumed non-fee costs associated with grazing on public land. The private lease rate is based on USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service’s published Animal Unit Month grazing rate for Idaho.
Public comments on the proposal closed Sept. 3. The ICA submitted detailed comments explaining the benefits of a stable grazing program to the state of Idaho and expressing concern regarding the undervalued non-fee costs that state grazing lessees provide. Additionally, we held meetings with IDL and Land Board staff to express our concerns with the way the non-fee costs were calculated.
The Land Board was scheduled to vote on the proposal at its September meeting but postponed the decision to October in light of the concerns we shared.
At that time, IDL further refined its proposal to change the non-fee cost calculations that put the state grazing
rate at 49% of the USDA NASS private rate for Idaho, which is 9.07 per AUM.
At the October meeting, the Land Board could not come to agreement on the proposal. The motion to proceed with its implementation failed on a tied vote. For the 2022 grazing season, the IDL grazing rate formula will remain unchanged.
Sage grouse plans under scrutiny
After years of drafting and redrafting sage grouse management plans, the Biden administration has signaled its intention to consider once again rewriting the federal sage grouse management plans. To date, we have had a troubling 2015 plan, replaced by an improved 2019 plan, which was then further revised by a 2021 supplemental plan in one of the Trump administration’s final acts before exiting.
It is now anticipated that the Department of Interior will soon open up a public commenting period to begin yet another planning process. From the beginning, the ICA has played a key role in working to ensure that any new language does not unnecessarily restrict livestock grazing, and will continue to do so as we go down this road again.
ICA ARCHIVE
Come to the convention!
All of these issues, plus many more, will be presented on and discussed at our convention Nov. 15-17 in Sun Valley. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to make plans to attend so we can have your input as we discuss our responses to issues and make plans for how we will proceed in the coming year. Our actions are driven solely by the policy our members set at convention. We need to hear from you!
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