Aug. 06–With Congress recessed for five weeks, elected officials are returning to their home states and districts to meet with their constituents.
Sen. John Cornyn visited Midland on Tuesday to hear about the impact of the Endangered Species Act, specifically the listing in March of the lesser prairie chicken as threatened. Sitting in a conference room at Midland International Airport, the Republican senator heard from area-elected and economic development officials, agencies and business representatives.
Ben Shepperd, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, cited the success the region had in working together two years ago to persuade the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to not list the dunes sagebrush lizard as endangered and said he hoped to repeat that success with the chicken. Already, more than 150 companies have enrolled acreage in conservation plans.
“The last thing we want to do is endanger species. We all want to do the right thing,” Shepperd said.
But in the aftermath of the listing, the association and four New Mexico counties have sued the service, saying the decision was not based on sound science.
He and Cornyn agreed that the state’s prolonged drought and loss of habitat has been primarily responsible for the loss of the lesser prairie chicken population.
Clayton Wolf, director of wildlife with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said wildlife, such as the chicken, go through boom-and-decline cycles, and the chicken’s population saw a significant decline in 2012-2013 but its numbers have risen recently as parts of its habitat have received rain.
“There is cause for optimism,” he said.
Wolf told Cornyn that his agency has tried to develop regulatory mechanisms to allow ranchers to continue their operations unchanged.
Luke Shipp, director of Zone 2 of the Texas Sheep and Goal Raisers Association, spoke as a rancher in Crockett County. He told Cornyn that Crockett County and his ranch were erroneously included in a FWS map of historic lesser prairie chicken habitats.
He expressed concern that the agency could tell him he couldn’t graze his livestock in certain areas or plow certain areas because they may be nesting areas for the chicken or that he couldn’t lease his land for construction of wind turbines because the chicken is afraid of tall structures.
“It’s not known to what extent the Fish and Wildlife Service will want to regulate. They have a reputation for changing the rules in the middle of the game,” he said.
The listing has impacted Midland International Airport’s efforts to finalize its spaceport license.
Marv Esterly, director of airports for the city of Midland, explained that the airport recently received a letter from the Fish and Wildlife Service, in which the agency said that XCorp vehicles taking off from the airport “may have an effect on the chicken but it is highly unlikely to be an adverse effect.”
When XCorp begins launches to the north of the airport, airport officials have agreed to send a biologist to study the effect of the sonic boom, which Esterly compared to a thunder clap. If the team decides that, after five launches, the chicken is not being adversely affected, “we’re done.”
“No one wants to adversely affect the environment, but we need science behind these regulations,” Esterly said.
Cornyn agreed, pointing to several pieces of legislation that he has introduced. One would reduce funding for listing activities, including for the lesser prairie chicken, based on arbitrary decision deadlines reached in closed-door settlements. A second would prohibit the departments of Interior and Agriculture from altering land management practices based on the chicken’s listing. The third would remove the lesser prairie chicken’s listing until 2020 to allow time for conservation plans to take effect.
These listings are a threat to the thriving economy of the Permian Basin, which Cornyn noted is a significant supplier of the nation’s energy and leading creator of well-paying jobs.
“Here we are in one of the most valuable, fastest-growing regions in the country, and once again the president is threatening to end that growth,” Cornyn said.
The listings are part of federal government overreach, Cornyn said, and the settlements between the FWS and environmental groups cut local stakeholders out of the process. The 2011 settlements that resulted in the chicken’s listing and could have resulted in the sagebrush lizard’s listing are just the tip of the iceberg, he said.
That is why it is key that such decisions are made with local stakeholders, such as elected officials, landowners and businesses, that have say and that those decisions are based on sound science, Cornyn said.
“Your comments are a confirmation of my concern that the Fish and Wildlife Service is making policy with Endangered Species Act settlements driving priorities,” he said.