Amodei: Fish & Wildlife's sage hen conclusions Ôunbelievable, incredible and without anything resembling documentary or scientific support'
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Brian Baluta, 202-225-6155
WASHINGTON, D.C. – After obtaining a letter sent by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) Pacific Southwest Regional Director Ren Lohoefener to the Nevada Sagebrush Ecosystem Council, which was filled with factual errors and conclusions he found to be “unbelievable, incredible and without anything resembling documentary or scientific support,” Congressman Mark Amodei sent the following letter to Lohoefener to express his serious concerns:
October 9, 2014
Mr. Ren Lohoefener
Regional Director, Pacific Southwest
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
2800 Cottage Way, Suite W-2606
Sacramento, CA 95825
Dear Ren,
Reference is made to your recent correspondence, dated October 1, 2014, to the Chairman of Nevada's Sagebrush Ecosystem Council, Dr. J.J. Goicoechea. Initially, I must admit to a high level of frustration with your continuing apparent aversion to copying me on correspondence regarding the Sage Hen in Nevada.
After several years of absolute robust communication and transparency on my part, I no longer have an appetite for hoping you will extend to me the same courtesy. Please consider this correspondence as a formal request to be copied on all your correspondence to Nevada local, state and federal officials related directly or indirectly to 2014 Nevada Greater Sage-Grouse (Hen) Conservation Plan.
Additionally, I note that the subject correspondence, although signed by you, refers to you in a third party context at the top of page two. Are you in fact the author of the subject correspondence? If not, please identify who is, or whom at the Service assisted in your authorship.
With respect to the subject of “your” letter, it would appear the Service has already applied several disturbing conclusions and practices in administering its duty with respect to the Sage Hen in Nevada.
Your approach continues to ignore the federal habitat ownership reality in Nevada. While I appreciate the Service's vast historical experience with the Endangered Species Act on state and private lands, Nevada is unique in that your sister Interior agencies own and administer 86 percent of the state. Your steadfast refusal to recognize this fact undermines the credibility needed to fashion a responsible habitat solution. You have indicated to me previously that the Service would hold the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to the same questions posed to the State of Nevada. Please provide copies of any correspondence from yourself to BLM and FS demonstrating you followed through with that action. To date, it appears your focus has ignored the habitat responsibility of federal land management agencies.
I see that there is a recent focus on what is referred to as “key non-federal habitats.” I am aware of the Natural Resources Conservation Service report that USFWS Nevada State Supervisor Ted Koch mischaracterized to conclude that such a resource exists. I'd like to know if the Service believes that key “federal” habitat exists in Nevada. Given the small percentage of private land ownership, the claim that the most important habitat acreage lies in 14 percent of Nevada while there is none in the federal 86 percent of the state is frankly incredible.
Additionally, in conversation in my Reno and D.C. offices with Mr. Koch and Nevada Department of Wildlife Director Tony Wasley, it was routinely acknowledged that the concept of wet meadow key habitat was, like all habitats, in need of quantification and mapping so as to identify, among other salient facts, who owns such areas.
The Service’s conclusion, as adopted in your letter, represents an individual interpretation of one report. Is this how the Service makes an administrative record? Eighty-six percent federal ownership of Nevada, but the wet meadows are all in the private, state and municipal 14 percent? Simply put, this is unbelievable, incredible and without anything resembling documentary or scientific support. Please forward a copy of the Service’s map establishing location and ownership of key non-federal wet meadows in Nevada.
Might I suggest, when supplying the requested data on federal land ownership in Nevada along with land ownership held privately in the name of the State or in the name of municipalities, that you not use the same data that was provided in the Service’s Capitol Hill briefing on October 6 to Congressional staff. Apparently, the Service is over-representing state and privately-owned land in Nevada by six million acres. The amount of acreage composing the 14 percent of the state that is not federally owned is approximately 13 million acres, not 19 million. I am not encouraged by the factual foundation, attention to detail or scientific basis of the Capitol Hill briefing when we are nearly a decade down the road with the Service keeping an eye on Sage Hen habitat. If credibility plays any role in statements, letters and briefings and in your ultimate decision; unilateral un-substantiated conclusions, conflicting analysis, advice and outright ignorance of basic facts have got to end.
I am absolutely astounded at the conclusion in your correspondence regarding habitat. Specific reference is made on page two of the October 1 letter, paragraph three:
“Given the uncertainty of being able to create sagebrush habitat and, if habitat can be created, the added uncertainty of use by sage grouse, the loss of good occupied sagebrush habitat has to be considered a serious consequence with low likelihood of mitigation success. Creating sage grouse habitat is not mitigation for loss of occupied sage grouse habitat.”
Ren, I had no idea, based on conversations from USFWS Director Dan Ashe on down through Sacramento, Denver and in Nevada, that the Service had come to the conclusion that sagebrush habitat could not be “created”! I am further surprised to learn that the Service concluded the Sage Hen will not use restored habitat. Please provide the supporting data that you and your Service consultants are relying on to support these conclusions. I am intrigued to hear why $32 million from NRCS and other agencies for habitat work for the Bi-State subspecies is a good thing; and the Service has recently put forth cost estimates for habitat work for the Greater Sage Hen across the West for $1 billion and yet, as of October 1, you indicate to Nevada that habitat creation is not looked upon favorably by the Service. Wow!
Please share with me your thoughts on what we have all been doing in the West for the past decade with respect to habitat loss and fragmentation if the Service’s position is that habitat cannot be restored or, if restored, utilized by the Greater Sage Hen. If this is in fact the Service’s position, the phrases “self-fulfilling prophecy” and “subterfuge to end multiple-use in the West” certainly take on a focused credibility.
Finally, I'm not sure what it takes for the Service to acknowledge that the overwhelming threat to Nevada Sage Hen habitat is and, for the past three decades, has been catastrophic wildland fire. Cheatgrass does not precede fire in Nevada’s sagebrush steppe ecosystem. In Nevada, BLM alone has burned more than 6.8 million acres in the past 20 years. Compare this to the fact that at the same time BLM and FS district managers and district rangers have permitted about 150,000 acres for mining operations. Additionally, the number of cattle grazing on federal allotments is down 20 percent. The sheep grazing on federal allotments is down 80 percent. If it is really about habitat, Ren, the inescapable conclusion is that we are losing habitat to fire, not decisions made by federal land managers in Nevada. There can be no clearer illustration of this fact than the reality that mining permits, for example, represent approximately two percent of total acreage lost to fire in Nevada in the last 20 years.
Yet the Service remains focused on every threat, but wildland fire. Specifically, what is the Service’s position on wildfire management in Sage Hen habitat in Nevada? Also, why is the Service not advising the BLM to be more proactive on addressing wild horse and burro populations as is the case in the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in Northwestern Nevada? The Service clearly states on its website (www.fws.gov/sheldonhartmtn/sheldon/horseburro.html):
“The horse and burro populations on Sheldon are causing negative impacts to native wildlife and their habitats. Conflicts over scarce water in this desert environment include trampling of vegetation along stream banks and at springheads, physical exclusion of other species by dominant stud horses and burros, and contamination from feces and urine. Horses and burros also cause habitat degradation by trampling and destroying vegetation in the upland areas. Together, these areas provide important habitat for native species such as sage-grouse… especially during the brooding seasons.”
What is the Service's position with respect to wild horses and Sage Hen habitat in the rest of Nevada? Is the Service attempting to restore Sage Hen habitat on the Sheldon? Does the Service have Sage Hen lek and population numbers and historical trends on the Sheldon pursuant to the Service’s habitat management operations? If so, please forward that data. I would like to see how the Sheldon management compares with your present Nevada plan suggestions.
As you can tell, I am of the opinion that the subject correspondence represents a major departure from your offer to “put the goal posts in granite” as stated the last time you and USFWS Mountain-Prairie Regional Director Noreen Walsh were in my D.C. office. I am not fond of letters, much less long ones. I regret that the most recent positions put forth under your leadership cannot be dealt with informally. Frankly, I am wondering if I was wasting everyone’s time the past three years in discussing habitat loss and fragmentation in the context of fire.
Kindly advise as to your response regarding the questions contained above. Reference made to your “spirit of assistance” in the attached letter. Should your response not be forthcoming within 30 days, I will advise my colleagues of your desire to communicate in the formal hearing context and begin work on scheduling appropriate field and Capitol Hill hearings.
Cordially,
Mark E. Amodei
Member of Congress
CC:
Representative Doc Hastings
Representative Rob Bishop
Representative Ken Calvert
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval
Nevada Sagebrush Ecosystem Council
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell
USFWS Director Dan Ashe
BLM Director Neil Kornze
BLM Nevada State Director Amy Lueders
USFWS Nevada State Supervisor Ted Koch
USFS Forest Supervisor, Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Bill Dunkelberger
USFWS Mountain-Prairie Regional Director Noreen Walsh
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