American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2020 - 96

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Draft SEISs Answer Criticisms
Of BLM's Sage Grouse RMPs

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96 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

WASHINGTON-The U.S. Bureau of
Land Management has responded to a federal court's injunction against sage grouse
management plans the agency released a
year ago with draft supplemental environmental impact statements that it says highlight the collaborative process and scientific
analysis BLM undertook in preparing the
March 2019 resource management plans.
"The draft SEISs illustrate the hard
look and robust analysis we performed
in this collaborative process to balance
our habitat conservation and enhancement
goals," Department of Interior Assistant
Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management Casey Hammond says in a Feb.
19 announcement.
On Oct. 16, Judge B. Lynn Winmill
in the U.S. District Court for the District
of Idaho granted four plaintiffs' request
to enjoin BLM from implementing its
March 2019 sage grouse RMP amendments for Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado,
Utah, Oregon and Nevada/northeastern
California.
The 2019 plan amendments replaced
2015 RMPs issued during the Obama
administration that utilized a tiered approach of increasing restrictions in areas
identified as General Habitat Management
Areas (GHMA), Priority Habitat Management Areas (PHMA) and Sagebrush
Focal Areas (SFA) that industry calculated
placed some sort of development limitation
or restriction on 66 million acres (AOGR,
July 2015, pg. 167).
The 2019 amendments retain the
PHMA designation for more than 29 million acres of sagebrush steppe, where the
management priority is to exclude or
avoid disturbance and minimize effects
where impacts can't be avoided (AOGR,
April 2019, pg. 18).
They also keep the GHMA designation
for 23 million acres, in which avoidance
and minimization are applied flexibly,
in line with local conditions and states'
species management objectives. The 2019
amendments remove all but 1.8 million
acres of the 10.7 million acres the 2015
RMPs designated as SFAs, in which oil
and gas drilling either is banned or severely limited.
In response to a lawsuit filed by the
Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth
Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Prairie Hill Audubon Society, Judge Winmill ruled the March
2019 amendments "substantially reduce
protections for sage grouse without any

explanation that the reductions were justified" (AOGR, November 2019, pg. 80).
Winmill also questioned whether BLM
based its reduction of protections "on
something other than merely a desire to
adopt state plans."
Clarify Analyses
According to the BLM, the draft SEISs
explain how the range of alternatives analyzed in the 2019 RMPs was developed,
their incorporation by reference of the
effects analysis from the 2015 RMPs,
and how best available science was used.
In a Feb. 19 teleconference, Hammond
acknowledged that BLM's draft SEISs
don't propose amendments to the 2019
or 2015 RMPs, according to published
reports. Instead, they clarify and provide
more detail into what went into BLM's
analyses.
Again citing Hammond, the Independent Petroleum Association of America
says the draft SEISs also clarify why
BLM changed the 2015 RMPs' compensatory mitigation requirements in the
2019 amendments.
The 2019 amendments removed
mandatory mitigation requirements in the
2015 RMPs that were designed to ensure
a "net conservation gain," IPAA observes.
"The revised plans say BLM 'will consider
compensatory mitigation only when offered voluntarily by a project proponent,'
or it is required by a law other than the
Federal Land Policy and Management
Act, which governs BLM," IPAA says.
"DOI is hopeful that updating its environmental analysis of the sage grouse
plans will convince Judge Winmill to lift
the injunction," IPAA adds. "Otherwise,
the department is prepared to move forward simultaneously with an appeal of
the judge's order."
BLM says it is accepting comments
on the draft SEISs, which are available
at www.blm.gov/programs/fish-andwildlife/sagegrouse/blm-sagegrouse-plans,
through April 6.
"BLM will review the comments to
determine whether any further action is
needed to address the issues identified in
the court's injunction order," IPAA quotes
a BLM spokesman.
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