How much damage can one administration do to wetlands in 18 months? That’s the question green sportsmen and other environmentalists are asking themselves after the Bush Administration issued its long-awaited “guidance” to key federal agencies on just which wetlands could be automatically protected by the Clean Water Act. The answer: If it doesn’t hold commercial traffic, there is no immunity from development.

That means those isolated and temporary wetlands so critical to fish and wildlife – and absolutely essential to waterfowl – no longer have the protection they have enjoyed since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1975.

This new guidance was the administration’s response to a pair of Supreme Court decisions last year which agreed with developers that the Clean Water Act was never intended to protect temporary and isolated wetlands. But the court was clear that its rulings were not decisions on the importance of those wetlands, only in the language and intent of the legislation as passed, and what it considered an over-reaching by the Army Corps of Engineers in expanding protections to habitats congress had not considered.

While sportsmen and other greens were correctly shocked by the decision, they also recognized the obvious fix: All Congress had to do was pass a law statijng it wanted those wetlands included in CWA protection. That led to introduction of the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2006.

The administration had a clear choice at the time: Stay true to its pledge to protect wetlands and wildlife by supporting the bill that could solve the problem raised by the court, or issue a new “guidance” that would give developers a chance to continue draining critical fish and wildlife habitat.

That decision was apparent with the new guidance. It orders federal agencies to provide automatic protection only to wetlands large enough to carry commercial traffic, the traditional definition of a navigable waterway.

Anything else – including isolated and temporary wetlands – can only be considered if investigations on a case by case basis show “a significant nexus” with a nearby traditional navigable waterway.

“This guidance places an unacceptable number of waters at risk of losing protection and does next to nothing to alleviate the confusion over what waters are federally protected,” said Jan Goldman-Carter, Wetlands Counsel for the National Wildlife Federation. It doesn’t fix a thing and makes the status of protections even worse for streams and wetlands.

“This guidance adds unnecessary and unintended hurdles for agencies and citizens trying to protect our waters. In particular, the guidance inexcusably retreats from protecting many important headwater streams and wetlands.

“The guidance, and the year it took for it to be issued, make plain that this Administration is not up to the task of protecting the nation’s waters. Congress must step in and make sure all wetlands, streams, lakes, rivers and other important waters are protected.”

The only way to do that is with the Clean Water Restoration Act. It should be passed quickly – because if this guidance is left standing, a lot of damage can be done in the final 18 months of the Bush Administration.

Guess what? Sportsmen are not obstructionists. We just want our public lands managed in a responsible way – which means we’re not opposed to energy development on property we own, we just demand that it be done by giving a priority to a clean environment and protecting fish and wildlife values. That’s the major finding in the latest nationwide survey of hunters and anglers released by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Now, if you hunt and fish - especially on public lands - none of that is news. It’s been a part of your personal moral code since shortly after you pulled your first trigger and set your first hook. If you’re a sportsmen, you have been one of America’s most dedicated environmentalists, something most other Americans are not aware of. You cherish the natural world because it is a real part of your life, not something you see on the Discovery channel. You’re not a viewer, you’re a participant, which means you have a very strong stake in keeping America green.

This green ethic has been highlighted in various other surveys and polls over the years, but it’s always good for the exercise to be up-dated because politicians of a certain stripe – an oil-and-gas stripe to be exact – often try to use us hunters and anglers to cover their dirty tracks. They like to claim we don’t agree with all those green groups out there shouting about the damage being done to public land, water and air to give higher profits to oil and gas companies. Makes them seem more reasonable and the greenies like a bunch of crazies.

But when someone sits down and asks the catch-and-kill crowd how they feel about what the Bush Administration is doing to our public property – as a nation public opinion firm did for the TRCP - turns out sportsmen are green at heart. Sensibly green.

The TRCP poll, which concentrated on issues affecting the Rocky Mountains, could turn up only 29 percent of hunters and anglers who thought energy development should be the top priority for public lands. Meanwhile, 79 percent opposed unlimited energy development and 85 percent felt federal agencies should take more steps to protect fish and wildlife on public lands leased for energy development.

According to the TRCP:

“The survey asked sportsmen directly about potential land management and legislative changes that could help strike the balance between energy development and fish and wildlife. The respondents strongly supported congressional action as well as policy changes in the land management agencies. These include:

1. 91% support (with 72% strongly supporting) legislation to require that a portion of the revenues generated from leasing public lands for energy development be used for fish and wildlife conservation.

2. 89% support (75% strongly support) requiring companies applying for an energy development permit to provide conservation plans showing how they will minimize the impacts of energy development on fish and wildlife.

3. 90% support (72% strongly support) requiring energy developers to adjust and adapt the energy development process to reduce negative impacts on fish and wildlife.”

You can read the entire survey here (pdf).

The sportsmen’s counter-offensive against the Bush Administration’s assault on public lands in the Rocky Mountains continued to gather momentum last week when Trout Unlimited and the National Wildlife Federation used a Washington press event to release its “Sportsmen’s Public Lands Energy Agenda.” (www.tu.org)

This concise, eight-page report provides hunters and anglers with a sensible, measured, fact-filled response to administration claims it needs to run rough shod over fish and wildlife habitat because the nation’s needs the oil and gas – and anyone opposing its actions is obstructionist.

Neither claim is true. There is plenty of energy available on lands already open to exploration – and sportsmen have never been against all development. We just want this administration to follow the laws that have worked well for two decades – even if it costs their oil friends a little extra money to increase their already considerable wealth

The new report lays it all out, starting with the first sub-head “Look Before You Lease” which points out that “88 percent of the ‘technically recoverable’ natural gas on federal lands in the Rocky Mountain West is currently available for leasing and development. Despite this huge acreage available for leasing and development, federal agencies continue to lease new areas. Federal agencies are leasing areas that are in the midst of land management plan revisions undercutting legal requirements for both public involvement and the use of best available scientific information to inform management decisions.”

Then, as it does for all the points on the next eight pages, it offers a “Solution.”

“Congress should prohibit new oil and gas leasing on public lands until landscape level management plans are completed. Landscape level management plans should include analyses of the habitat requirements and limitations for game species and other species of concern.”

That might sound extreme to someone waiting to become rich off public property. But to the overwhelming majority of the folks who own that land – especially hunters and anglers – it seems pretty reasonable.

The fact this argument is coming from sportsmen increases the likelihood that Congress may finally start listening, and bring the Bush administration back to responsible stewardship.

If the Democratic Congress wants to establish itself as a green alternative to six ugly years of Bushcology, there’s no better – or easier – place to start than ending mountaintop removal mining.

The term “mountaintop removal mining: is a perfect description of the process, but a more gripping explanation comes from Erik Reece, author of Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness. Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia: "Mountaintop removal entails the blasting of entire summits to rubble in an effort to reach, as quickly as possible, thin seams of bituminous coal. Trees, topsoil and sandstone are dumped into the valleys below.”

According to state and federal studies, the dumping has buried more than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams, and polluted 95 percent of the headwater streams near the operations.

Anglers and other green groups have labored for decades to end the practice, but the coal lobby was too powerful in both Democratic and Republican administrations. That power grew even greater when George W. Bush took office. In 2002, with environmentalists pressing legal questions, the administration reclassified the tons of rock and debris being tossed down the mountains from “waste” to “fill” basically exempting mountaintop removal mining from important sections of the Clean Water Act.

The destruction continued unabated until March, when a federal judge ruled in favor of environmental groups that claimed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not done an adequate environmental impact statement on four mining operations. Seems the corps had decided that mountaintop removal mining would have “no significant impact" on the local environment, and further claimed the mining companies could return everything to original health after cleanup.

Judge Robert Chambers - like everyone else not connected to coal companies - disagreed, ruling “The Corps believes that once the ditches are connected and channels reshaped, they will transform into streams and supply the same structure and functions as the destroyed streams. However, the Corps offers little experience or scientific support for this belief. The Corp's witnesses . . . conceded that the Corps does not know of any successful stream creation projects in the Appalachian region."

The coal companies have said they would appeal the ruling. Given the way the Bush Administration has been stocking the courts with anti-regulatory zealots, their chances are good.

But there’s still hope. The Clear Water Protection Act, H.R. 2169, introduced earlier this month, would end the practice. At last count it had 67 co-sponsors.

Green sportsmen should urge their reps to join the list – it’s good for trout, sportsmen and the earth.

Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?

I couldn’t help think of that old sarcasm when I read the reaction by federal agencies and the energy industry to a report last week on the impact of the Bush Administrations drill-fast-ask-questions-later policy in the Rocky Mountains.

The title of the report by the Environmental Working Group best sums up the growing anger among sportsmen toward Dubya’s regard for public lands: “Who Owns the West? How Reckless Oil & Gas Drilling on Public Lands Threatens Wildlife Habitat – and Hunting.”

Its main point is that drilling in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming has doubled since Bush-Cheney took office, going from 1,036 new wells per year during the Clinton Administration (1993-2000) to 2,053 per year under the Bushies.

That rush to drill was enabled by removing many long-standing regulations that reduced the impacts of private profit seeking on public fish and wildlife habitat. Those rules were in place because it seemed only reasonable that if most of the owners of this land use it for recreation, then those who want it to enrich themselves should have to follow rules.

Using state fish and game agency maps, the EWG report shows the feds have leased 23 million acres of mule deer habitat, 18 million acres of antelope habitat, 17 million acres of sage grouse habitat and 13 million acres of elk habitat. It cites reports from both wildlife agencies and hunters that the drilling has disrupted access as well as results to public hunting lands.

No one should be surprised by those figures. The issue has been raised for six years by groups like The Wilderness Society; Trout Unlimited; the National Wildlife Federation, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, to name a few.

But Bushies and their oil pals insist sportsmen and other greenies have it all wrong. A BLM official told the Associate Press that the increase in drilling had nothing to do with Bush energy policies but was a reflection of market forces. An oil industry rep piped in with the same line, then dismissed the concern of hunters and other green folks with "It's very narrow-minded to believe oil and gas development is not going to occur."

That kind of arrogance has ruled the debate for six years, allowing incalculable damage to take place on our lands. The EWG highlights the impacts to real sportsmen using maps of specific prized public hunting areas to show the increase in leasing.

It’s the kind of information every sportsman should memorize--and have read during the coming election cycle. When the next candidate heavily subsidized by the energy industry tells you everything is fine out west--tell him you prefer to believe your lying eyes.

Cancel that ambulance, but keep the engine running. CRP does not need CPR--just yet.

The crisis over the future of the Conservation Reserve Program was put on hold recently when Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns revealed the Bush Administration was postponing two very bad ideas, and pushing forward with a very good one.

All three ideas have grown out of the administration’s drive to increase ethanol production. The push for ethanol is a very green concept, but if farmers abandon CRP to capture the skyrocketing market for corn to supply ethanol plants, the bio-fuel craze could be very bad for wildlife. For several months it looked like that just might happen, but Johanns’ announcements have given the program a reprieve.

Bad Idea No. 1 was a proposal to reduce the allotment of CRP acres in the new Farm Bill from the current 39.2 million figure. But Johanns said flatly the administration would ask Congress to maintain the status quo.  That’s not the 45 million acres authorized for CRP when Congress first approved the program in 1985, but it’s the next best thing. Nor is there any guarantee that Congress will fund the entire 39.2 million, but at least there won’t be objections from the White House--for now.

Bad Idea No. 2 was the request to allow no-penalty early withdrawals from CRP contracts. Johanns now says that won’t happen in 2007. But no decision would be made on 2008 until the fall, when the administration has a better idea on how much corn was actually planted, and how well the predicted harvest might meet demand.

Very Good Idea No. 1: The administration will increase funding for programs that encourage development of technology to produce ethanol from so-called “bio-mass”--prairies grasses and plant waste. Once these technologies are perfected, the pressure to plant corn will begin to ease. Better still, farmers would have a market-driven incentive to put more acres into native prairie grasses, actually enlarging the impact of CRP.

“We’re definitely not out of the woods on the threat to CRP just yet, but all of these developments give us some breathing room,” said Terry Riley, a farm policy specialist with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

“We’re still going to need to watch very carefully, and push Congress to hold the line on the gains we’ve made in CRP.”

Anyone seeking a measure of how far the nation’s environmental awareness has slipped during the Bush Administration need only consider this: Earlier this month sportsmen and other green folk cheered a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stating dams were not a part of the natural ecosystem. Read it here.

The court was forced to make that ruling because the Bush Administration was actually making the claim that dams had been around so long on the Columbia River, they should be considered part of the natural environment. And because they are part of the natural system, their impacts couldn’t be considered a reason Columbia basin salmon have been pushed toward extinction. And that, of course, meant dams should not be regulated or removed to help salmon.

It didn’t take long for the clearly astonished three-judge panel to give the administration what the Portland Oregonian rightly described as a unanimous slap-down.

In earlier times (say, six years ago) this would sound like material for The Daily Show, a matter of such absurdity that even uttering it would bring ridicule. After all, no one in their right mind – even their far-right mind – would make the claim that a massive wall of concrete across a free-flowing river should be considered part of a natural ecosystem. If allowed to stand, that logic could be used to undo regulations on power plants that cured acid rain because those plants had been around so long their pollution was now just a natural part of the atmosphere.

One might argue, as many have, that dams are more important than fish, or that cheap, clean hydroelectric power is more important than preventing a race of salmon on the Columbia River from becoming extinct. That would be the principled argument used by many opponents against the push by sportsmen and other environmentalists to address the damage to river systems caused by dams. It’s a point of view worthy of due consideration. Problem is, the public has considered those points, and rejected them. By wide margins, Americans want natural systems restored.

This admittedly leaves policy-makers with a challenge, especially since the pressing issue of global warming means we must get more power from clean sources, like dams. But if we can put men on the moon in less than 10 years from a standing start, surely we can find a way to produce the same amount of  clean power without destroying valuable renewable resources.

Yet anyone who has followed this administration is surprised by their recent dams-are-natural gambit. It’s just more of the Alice-in-Wonderland logic it has tried in other environmental issues when the facts put the lie to its desires – which are always to err on the side of industry profits.  

At first we were stunned by this tactic. But six years later we are reduced to claiming “a victory” when a court issues a ruling pointing out that dams are not a natural part of the landscape.

Thanks, Dubya.

Anyone who doubts the threat George W. Bush and his ilk present to the future of public hunting and fishing need only remember the name Susan Dudley.

For many years Dudley headed the Mercatus Center, an industry-funded anti-regulatory think tank at George Mason University (read it here).

The philosophy of scholars there is that government should get out of the regulation business and allow the free market - or public reaction - to decide behavior. So, if a hamburger joint was selling tainted burgers that were killing people, it would quickly go out of business because people would stop buying burger there. Who needs meat inspection, right?

Taken to its logical conclusion there would be no need to regulate how oil and gas companies drill on public lands because a public outraged at their excesses would purchase gas from another brand. Or, buy electricity from another power producer. Or .. well, you get the point.

Over the years Dudley has opined against air bag and seat belt regulations, air pollution regulations, limits on arsenic in drinking water, a public pollution warning system, to name a few (click here to read).

That may sound extreme to you, me and most other Americans, and it is. But it perfectly reflects the ideals of President Bush and his small inner circle of ideologues. So last year the president nominated Dudley director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget. That innocuous-titled position is one of the most powerful in government, because the person in that job has the authority to block or change all regulations proposed by all government agencies.

So what do you suppose Ms. Dudley would do if (and I'm dreaming here) the Bureau of Land Management suddenly got religion and issued a regulation that forbid oil drillers on the Rocky Mountain front from poisoning local water sheds?

Right.

Congress had the same concerns, so it blocked the appointment. But when Congress left for Easter vacation, the Sportsman-in-Chief used his recess appointment power to put her in that seat anyway. The Dudley appointment was so essential to this president that he felt it worthwhile forcing her into that key position. even if it meant used a tactic guaranteed to infuriate Congress.

And this is a guy who says he loves huntin' and fishin'.

Just before Congress left for its Easter break, an event took place that every sportsman in America should become familiar with. The House Committee on Natural Resources held a full oversight hearing entitled, “Access Denied: The Growing Conflict Between Fishing, Hunting, and Energy Development on Federal Lands.”
          
In clear and unambiguous words, representatives from the nation’s leading sportsmen-conservation organizations spelled out what the Bush Administration has been doing to public fish and wildlife habitat, especially in the Rocky Mountains.
        
Their sentiments are best summarized by Dr. Rollin Sparrowe, chairman of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s energy working group, who complained that the Bush Administration had “reprogrammed” federal land managers to make assisting mineral development their first – and sometime only – priority. (download PDF here)

Sparrowe went on to point out that while some energy companies made honest attempts to follow regulations, others “have invested in attempts to discredit research results they perceive as unfavorable to their mission." Realistically, their job is to develop gas and oil and produce as much as possible. Their associations and company lobbyists have pursued "the wildlife question" as an impediment and our government has listened to them and largely ignored the conservation community’s many appeals to slow down and "do this right."

 
Steve Williams, President & CEO of the Wildlife Management Institute, and a former Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under George W. Bush, told the committee,  "As a hunter, angler, and wildlife conservationist, I am troubled by the pace of leasing, exploration, and development occurring throughout large portions of public land in the West. More troubling than the pace of development, however, is the manner in which it is conducted."    

It’s worth reading all of the testimony, then comparing the statements made by Williams and other wildlife professionals to the surreal claims of cooperation and beneficence by the representative of the energy industry, Charles E. Greenhawt of Questar Exploration. (Read it here)

But it’s also significant that the event took place at all.
 
Anyone who hasn’t been sleeping under a rock for the last six years is aware of the damage done to fish and wildlife habitat by the unholy alliance the Bush Administration has with the energy industry.  To be fair, Dubya didn’t hide his intentions during the presidential campaign.  He was going to Washington as an oil man determined to make it easier for the oil bidness to pump energy and profits off public lands. And if the choice ever came down to fish and wildlife vs. oil and gas, goodbye trout and deer.

And the Sportsman-in-Chief couldn't have unleashed this unprecedented assault on public lands without a compliant Republican congress. Sportsmen began complaining almost immediately, but there was never going to be a full oversight committee hearing on how energy development was impacting fish and wildlife under that Congress.

For six years anyone who raised a voice against abuse of public property by the very special interests aligned with the White House risked being called an “extremist” or “obstructionist” – and, of course, the always favorite “unpatriotic.” Those special interests had such a tight grip on Congress, we couldn’t even get a hearing. Remember the Cheney Energy Task Force?

But last fall’s elections changed that equation. So two weeks ago, a Congressional committee actually asked to hear what hunters and anglers thought about the Bush Administrations energy practices on public lands.

Now, if we can only get the Sportsman-in-Chief to listen.

Can the nation’s rush to biofeuls production be turned into a blessing for fish and wildlife?

A few months ago that idea would have been dismissed as something worse than wishful thinking. After all, the Bush Administration’s push to increase ethanol production had already sent corn futures skyrocketing, prompting the farm lobby to demand early release from CRP contracts to meet the demand from the wave of ethanol plants being built. That news could mean the loss of 5 to 7 million acres of upland cover for wildlife.

And any thoughts those fears were misplaced were dispelled last week when the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the biofeul craze had prompted the largest corn plantings in the U.S. since World War II.

So where’s the good news?

It’s here: Research shows native prairie grasses are much more efficient in producing ethanol than corn.

It takes 1 gallon of fossil fuels (in the form of fertilizer, tractor fuel, ethanol plant operation, etc.) to produce 1.2 gallons of ethanol from corn. Yet research has shown that 1 gallon of fossil fuel can produce over 5 gallons of ethanol from prairie grasses, according to Terry Riley, President of Policy at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

So, if the whole reason for ethanol production is to relieve our dependence on oil and reduce the production of greenhouse gasses, then native prairie grasses are the way to go. And even President Bush can tell you native grasses have infinitely more value for wildlife than rows of corn and soybeans. Read it here.

You can read all about it in a fascinating op-ed piece “Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem,” by University of Minnesota researchers David Tilman and Jason Hill that appeared in the March 25 edition of The Washington Post.

Their 10-year experiment, the results of which were published in Science magazine, showed the huge advantages of using native grasses over corn for alternative energy production. The same grasses that sportsmen have been trying to put back onto the landscape through CRP are more efficient at producing ethanol and - just as important - hugely effective at reducing greenhouse gasses.

Even better, native prairie grasses will grow on soils that cannot support corn or soy beans, meaning the total acres available for fuel production - and greenhouse gas reduction - would be dramatically increased.

Imagine the explosion in the population of upland game birds if miles of row crops were replaced by native grasses.

Imagine that market incentives could make this possible without government subsidies.

So far it’s only an idea. But with gas prices inching over $3 per gallon, its time may be coming.