Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell has fired back at a federal provision banning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from placing the sage grouse on the endangered species list for one year. The provision was a rider in the omnibus spending bill, passed last month.
Jewell says the rider will have no effect on Fish and Wildlife’s federal court-ordered obligation to make a decision on the sage grouse listing by this fall. Chairman Bob Budd with the Sage Grouse Implementation Team says it was unclear after the spending bill was released what the next step for Wyoming’s sage grouse conservation efforts would be.
“Her response was to Hickenlooper and me who had asked the question, what do you do now? And so she gave an answer to that based on what their obligations were under the court order and what their obligations were under the law. And under the budget.
Budd says Jewell’s statement affirms that Wyoming can move forward on the sage grouse recovery efforts it’s been working on for the last seven years.