Landowners, loggers, tribes, developers and others have a chance to tell the federal government what they think about certain aspects of the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting suggestions about how to better streamline permits in lands that have protected species and habitats.
The goal is to “more effectively support conservation efforts while addressing the needs of landowners, industry and local communities,” according to a fish and wildlife press release.
For instance, if you’re building housing in grizzly bear habitat or setting up a wind farm where long-eared bats congregate, it triggers a permitting process that can take months or even years. The process is meant to prevent or minimize harm to designated species.
“The inefficiencies in the permitting program are a real big drain on what the agency can do,” said Jonathan Wood, vice president of law and policy at the Montana-based nonprofit, the Property and Environmental Research Center, which advocates for incentivizing landowners to recover species.
Wood gave an example: a railway that goes through Montana recently got a permit that allows it to kill, or “take,” 19 grizzly bears in seven years, if it implements a conservation plan to try to keep bears safe. Wood said it took a 20-year saga to get to that point and the permit isn’t permanent.
“They got a seven-year permit, so they probably have to start working on the renewal today,” Wood said.
His view is that there aren’t enough federal workers to meet the demand for permits. One solution, Wood said, would be to grant states a larger role in the process. Another would be for the agency to give out nationwide permits with specific guidelines.
“So that if you're building a house or putting in an electrical transmission line, they’re already laid out for you what you have to do and your permit has already been issued,” he said.
The arduous process can even discourage conservation efforts, which you also have to get a permit for, he added.
“If you tell somebody that wants to reintroduce a species to their property or restore habitat that they have to wait and spend a bunch of money on this process that might take years, and there's no guarantee they'll get the permit at the end of it,” Wood said, “the concern is there are a lot of folks that just won't even bother.”
Yet some environmentalists say the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is flexible enough, given it’s protecting wildlife that are rapidly dying off.
“The real impediments to implementing the ESA more effectively, and addressing specific substantiated concerns raised by ESA critics, appear to be inadequate resources—specifically, the lack of funding and people needed to implement the ESA,” says a 2017 report from the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy institute.
Stakeholders have until July 9 to give feedback and propose solutions online. The agency is particularly interested in hearing about methods to streamline conservation plans and strategies to make communication better, as well as gauging the need for more funding and resources.
Wood said many presidential administrations have tried to improve the permitting process, though the Trump team is also considering limiting what land users need a permit for.
Back in April, the fish and wildlife agency proposed a rule to only protect species, not their habitats. The service received almost 243,000 comments online for that proposal. It has yet to release a final rule.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
