Land Letter
Published March 12, 2008
FWS says bear bill would not help stop poaching
A House bill intended to stop the poaching of wild bears would not give
wildlife officials any new tools to deal with poaching or help bear
conservation, the head of law enforcement for the Fish and Wildlife Service said this week.
House Democrats are pushing legislation that would prohibit the import,
export and interstate trade of bear viscera. The bill from Rep. Raúl
Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is an attempt to deter poachers from illegally
slaughtering wild bears in the United States and Asia. The poachers
sometimes trade the gallbladders and bile of bears for traditional folk
medicines.
Benito Perez, head of law enforcement for the Fish and Wildlife Service, came out against H.R. 5534 at a hearing before a House Natural Resources subcommittee. He said he appreciates the interest in bear conservation, but the bill would be "largely duplicative" of existing authority in bills governing the trade of wildlife.
Trade in bear parts is already illegal in 35 states. But the demand for bear parts has been growing over the past 20 years, with hundreds of violations in Virginia alone, according to Skip Wissinger, a former criminal investigator for the Park Service in Virginia. Wissinger supports the bill.
"This relatively simply but comprehensive legislation ... would provide
effective and consistent enforcement by agencies throughout the U.S.,"
Wissinger said.
A similar bill passed unanimously in the Senate in 2000 and 2001. It has the support of the Humane Society, but not of other wildlife groups. Analysis shows proximity of hardrock claims to cities
Thousands of hardrock mining claims are next door to many of the West's
largest cities, according to an analysis of claims by an advocacy group
urging Congress to reform the 1872 mining law.
The Environmental Working Group said its study shows 51,579 claims within five miles of cities or towns -- a number that has grown by 16,282 over the last five years. There are 5,822 claims near Las Vegas and 5,131 near Phoenix, the group said.
Though mines are built on just a fraction of claims, it takes a few to make a profound impact on a community, the group said. Crested Butte, Colo., which has 671 mining claims nearby, already pays about $1 million per year to treat water contaminated with mine waste and is battling to block a proposed molybdenum mine in the Gunnison National Forest.
Fueled by surging metal prices, the claims have grown in recent years
because the 1872 law includes no prohibitions against making claims near cities or parks, the group said.
"If this worldwide demand for precious metals continues we could very well see toxic mining operations not far from schools, parks and playgrounds in residential communities throughout the West," said Dusty Horwitt, the group's public lands analyst.
Federal agencies have few opportunities to block mines. In 1996, for
example, Horwitt said, the government spent $65 million to prevent
development near Yellowstone National Park by buying out claims. And last month, for example, the Forest Service approved a permit to allow a British mining company to explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park (Greenwire, Feb. 7). House Dems float new fire suppression fund
Three Democratic congressmen introduced legislation last week to establish a new federal fund for fighting forest fires following a series of reports blasting the government's wildfire strategy.
The legislation from Reps. Nick Rahall (W.Va.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) and Norm Dicks (Wash.) would create a fund that the Forest Service and other federal agencies could draw from to combat massive forest fires.
Sponsors say the fund would take pressure off the budgets of agencies that have other, non-fire missions. Under the president's fiscal 2009 budget proposal, the Forest Service's fire suppression account would get a $148 million increase -- to just under $1 billion -- making it by far the largest part of the agency's $4.1 billion budget proposal.
"The administration's budget request continues this sad trend -- turning the Forest Service into the Fire Service," Rahall, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said last week in a statement. "This legislation aims to turn this situation around by ensuring that America has the necessary tools to combat wildland fires."
Under the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME Act), monies can only be drawn from the account if the secretaries of Agriculture and Interior declare that a fire 300 acres or larger in size is severe and complex enough to warrant the special funding. Monies for the fund would be appropriated based on the average firefighting costs over the last five fiscal years.
The bill would not change the current practice of setting the Forest Service and Interior Department firefighting budgets based on the 10-year average of fire suppression costs, but simply removing catastrophic fires from the Forest Service's budget may be a huge benefit for the agencies. Enviro groups seek to protect Peirson's milk-vetch
The Center for Biological Diversity, Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER), Desert Survivors, and the Sierra Club last week filed notice of a lawsuit challenging the "systematic reductions in critical habitat" for Peirson's milk-vetch.
Though state and federal actions have decreased the protected habitat, the Peirson's milk-vetch is found nowhere in the United States save on a small portion of Southern California's Algodones Dunes, the groups say. The area in question, also known as the Imperial Dunes, happens to be a popular place for off-road vehicle enthusiasts.
"Because the Bush administration seems bent on driving this plant closer to extinction," says Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, "our only option is to challenge the critical habitat determination in court, where science will prevail. Shame on the federal government for wasting tax dollars doing junk science."
Reduced from an original proposal of 52,780 acres just four years ago, the meager 12,105 protected acres is a 77 percent decrease in protection on the Algodones Dunes, the groups point out.
"The Interior Department's determination to continue to sacrifice the amount of protected habitat defies the recommendations of local biologists with the best knowledge of what the milk-vetch needs to survive millions of menacing knobby tires," said Karen Schambach of PEER. GAO cites problems with Interior's royalty management
The Interior Department remains unable to ensure that oil and gas producers are paying full royalties, due to data management problems and failure to consistently verify industry-reported data, the Government Accountability Office told a House panel this week.
The testimony is the latest in a string of criticisms of the agency, and Interior officials say they are implementing a host of reforms and
improvements.
GAO representatives testified before a panel of the House Natural Resources Committee that is probing oil and gas royalty management. GAO, in a statement to the panel, cited several problems. The auditors found that two Interior agencies -- the Bureau of Land Management and the Minerals Management Service -- are not "fully conducting production inspections as required by law and agency policies."
GAO said MMS's financial management systems are "inadequate and lack key controls." In one case, GAO noted that MMS could not reliably detect missing production reports until late 2004 and that the agency has identified a backlog of about 300,000 missing reports that must be addressed.
Elsewhere, GAO made several findings with respect to the royalty-in-kind program, in which producers may provide oil and gas directly to Interior in lieu of royalty payments. The program has grown in recent years. The statement said MMS's production verification process for RIK gas is not as rigorous as that for RIK oil. Overall, GAO found that questions exist about MMS methods to calculate revenues from the RIK program. The Department of Energy is using RIK oil to add to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Lawmakers take aim at gun review
Democratic members of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee last week criticized the Interior Department for revisiting its policies on guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.
The department is reviewing the firearm regulations on lands overseen by the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service to determine whether they need to be updated.
Current rules require a firearm to be rendered inoperable before entering parks and refuges, but in a recent pair of letters to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, 51 senators said the policies were confusing and could conflict with the Second Amendment rights of gun owners.
Interior's gun rules were established in the 1930s to bar poaching. They were amended in 1983 to allow a firearm to be carried in parks and refuges if the gun is unloaded.
NPS Director Mary Bomar said there were some inconsistencies that warrant a second look at the gun policy. In 61 park units that allow hunting, firearms are governed by state laws. Other agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service defer to state laws on carrying firearms.
The conflicts may not be out in the wilderness but rather in the
government's own backyard. For example, Bomar said, there could be conflicts with the policy when driving with a gun through parts of Washington, D.C., that are considered national park lands. The new proposed regulations are due by April 30.
Several conservation and law enforcement groups, including the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, say amending the law would a dangerous change that could discourage visitors and increase poaching.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has led his own efforts in the Senate. He has
attempted to amend a public lands bill to repeal firearm restrictions in parks and refuges and introduced freestanding legislation.
