E&E News | Sage Grouse Changes / Grazing Rule

Glover dismissed the PEER analysis at the time as “wholly unscientific and disappointing.” She also did so after Stone-Manning’s speech. Western Watersheds Project, which opposes large-scale grazing on federal lands, later released an online report showing that BLM failed to conduct a environmental analysis before renewing more than half of the grazing permits it approved last year (E&E News PM, March 23). WWP said the likely result is degraded federal rangelands, including those that are home to sensitive wildlife species like greater sage grouse. Both PEER and WWP shared the results of their separate analysis with Stone-Manning. Stone-Manning was asked during the question-and-answer session about the reports and how BLM planned to address them. While Stone-Manning did echo BLM’s comments earlier this month that the bureau “disagreed” with some of the conclusions in the PEER report, she acknowledged the backlog of environmental reviews on permit renewals, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. “The second study that was out there that talked about the stale NEPA on a bunch of our permits is true,” she said. “It is just not OK that everybody on this screen has permits, in some cases, that are 20 years old; it’s not OK.” But she said she wants to move past the “finger-pointing” on which stakeholders are most to blame for failing rangeland conditions. “Truly the good news is — and the shared value no matter who it is who’s talking about it— we all want for the future for these rangelands to be healthy, productive, that they have the ability to deliver that sustained yield that is truly our mission,” she said.

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