US Interior Sec. Sally Jewell spoke extensively about efforts to improve the greater sage grouse's habitat when she appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 24. Then committee member Rob Portman (R-Ohio) brought up the northern long-eared bat.
Portman said the US Fish & Wildlife Service, an Interior agency, was considering whether to list the 3 to 7-in. bat, which is found across much of the eastern and north-central US, as an endangered species. He expressed concern that it potentially could jeopardize Ohio's growing oil and gas resource development.
Jewell responded that this bat's primary threat was white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that already has cut the animal's population dramatically at many hibernation sites in the Northeast. She said FWS proposed a designation under Section 4[d] of the Endangered Species Act. This would allow some forest management, transmission corridor, and species tracking activities, FWS's Jan. 16 notice said.
The secretary seemed to suggest that federal agencies, states, and local stakeholders including communities, property owners, and oil and gas producers, might work collaboratively on the northern long-eared bat problem in a manner similar to what has occurred with the greater sage grouse farther west.
Congressional Republicans remained concerned. House Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (Utah) and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. Inhofe (Okla.), along with seven other GOP federal lawmakers, asked on Mar. 17 for 60-day extensions of both the comment period for the proposed 4[d] designation and the scheduled Apr. 2 final listing decision.
"[We] urge you to protect the NLEB from population loss associated with WNS, without unduly burdening impacted communities and citizens by driving up costs for farmers, foresters, and families who ultimately will have to bear the burden of any unnecessarily onerous rules, as it is clear that human activities are not a reasonable basis for adding the NLEB to the Endangered and Threatened Species List," they said in a letter to FWS Director Daniel M. Ashe.
Settlement impacts widen
Kathleen Sgamma, who was in Washington on Feb. 24 as part of the Western Energy Alliance's annual Winter Call-Up when members come east to visit congressional offices and federal agencies, said she was not surprised when Portman mentioned the northern long-eared bat's pending listing decision earlier that day at the committee hearing where Jewell testified.
The federal court settlement that imposed deadlines for FWS to reach protection decisions affected 878 species, she told OGJ. "People in states where there has been little or no oil and gas activity before will feel the effects of this agreement with two environmental groups," said Sgamma, WEA's government and public affairs vice-president.