Can the BLM be trusted? 

When it comes to supervising oil and gas drilling, no way.

Three important decisions related to our work in the Uinta Basin of Utah came down this week.  By Tuesday, Utah reporters and I felt the same way - another press release??? 

The first two decisions involved other arms of the federal government telling the Bureau of Land Management that it was not adequately protecting endangered plants and animals on its lands from the impacts of oil and gas drilling.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that our petition to protect Pariette cactus under the Endangered Species Act did present substantial information showing that oil and gas drilling permitted by the BLM in the Uinta Basin may threaten the cactus, so now the Service will undertake its own review of the cactus's status.

Then on Monday, the BLM itself suspended oil and gas leases on 29,000 acres of federal land in the Basin because its internal review board, the Interior Board of Land Appeals, ruled that the agency illegally issued the leases without considering how drilling might affect black-footed ferret habitat.

So, when the third decision came out Tuesday and the Fish and Wildlife Service said that the BLM should be trusted to conserve Graham's penstemon in the face of oil and gas drilling, oil shale mining, and tar sands development in the Uinta Basin, anybody following the earlier two stories had to stop and say, uh, 'scuse me?

The story we've been hearing is that even though the Colorado and Utah Offices of the BLM actually supported Endangered Species Act protection for Graham's penstemon, the Washington Office said no way, and somehow managed to hijack the Service's decision.

Comparing some of the language in the three decisions is pretty interesting.

from the Graham's penstemon decision:

conventional oil and gas lease stipulations provide sufficient conservation measures to prevent extinction [of Graham's penstemon]. 71 Fed. Reg. 76028 (Dec. 19, 2006)

The BLM has stressed its commitment to develop appropriate regulations for the leasing program, and to develop conservation measures for [Graham's penstemon]. 71 Fed. Reg. 76033 (Dec. 19, 2006)

from the Pariette cactus decision:

We have documented the direct loss of [Pariette cactus] individuals to oil field development activities including mechanical disturbance of occupied habitat with the loss of individual plants and sedimentation from roads and well pads burying other individuals.  These losses have occurred despite conservation efforts implemented by BLM and the oil field operator (Newfield, Inc.). 71 Fed. Reg. 75218 (Dec. 14, 2006)

Regardless of conservation efforts, adverse indirect effects are still expected due to the loss and fragmentation of suitable habitat... 71 Fed. Reg. 75218 (Dec. 14, 2006)

from the ferret leasing ruling:

This special status species stipulation in question, however, does not provide for [No Surface Occupancy].  Moreover, CNE is correct that the stipulation provides no assurance that impacts to the reintroduction program can be mitigated to insignificance....BLM's authority is limited to "recommending modifications" to exploration and development proposals to avoid "contribut[ing] to a need to list" such a special status species or jeopardizing the continued existence of a proposed or listed threatened or endangered species or its critical habitat....Presumably understanding the limitations of the special status species stipulation, [the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] objected to the sale without the imposition of stipulations particularly designed to be effective... 170 IBLA 349-350

So if the Service and the BLM's own internal review board both concluded in the past week that the agency does not have effective measures in place to protect endangered species from oil and gas drilling, why would the Service then trust that everything would be OK for Graham's penstemon, just because BLM said so?

The stakes were higher for Interior on the penstemon decision.  They were poised to finalize listing under the Endangered Species Act, and this decision represents their last-ditch effort to avoid that so that oil and gas companies are not inconvenienced.

We will have a very strong lawsuit, especially because the Service spelled out all the threats to the penstemon in its January 2006 listing proposal.  But this decision further delays protections - which have been pending for 30 years already! - and illustrates why it is so hard to recover species, especially when opportunities to provide commonsense protections are thwarted again and again.

As the Salt Lake Tribune wrote in yesterday's editorial, "Off the Block:  BLM Ignores Its Mission in Rush to Sell Leases":

    The survival of the black-footed ferret may seem insignificant compared to the commercial value of oil and gas. But when any species becomes endangered, that is a signal that an entire ecosystem is in trouble.    
    Maintaining those ecosystems helps keep Earth's larger biological systems in balance, a far more important goal than fattening the bottom line of the extractive energy industry.