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Re: E-M:/ Sierra Club notifies USFWS intends to sue on wildlife grnts
Folks,
As one who has followed Sierra Club's work on the misuse of
Pittman-Robertson Act funds in Michigan, I applaud these efforts and want to
extend my support to the Club on their work and this lawsuit. The time has
clearly come when legal mechanisms are used to stop this wanton squandering of
scarce federal conservation funds.
Pittman-Robertson dollars should be going to ecological restoration and
resource protection, not to subsidizing wholesale clearcutting of public forests
and improper wetland management and developments. Given Michigan's current
state of affairs when it comes to the Department of Environmental Quality and
Department of Natural Resources, agency oversight is a must. Michigan
citizens and taxpayers across the nation should be happy to hear that the
hemorrage of federal dollars to Michigan that support destructive activities is
being challenged.
David J. Zaber
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 3:05
PM
Subject: E-M:/ Sierra Club notifies USFWS
intends to sue on wildlife grnts
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Enviro-Mich
message from anne.woiwode@sfsierra.sierraclub.org
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Enviro-Mich:
The
following press release was put out today by Mackinac (Michigan) Chapter
of
Sierra Club:
For Immediate
Release
Contact: Anne Woiwode 517- 484-2372
August 3,
1999
Marvin Roberson
414-332-6553
Tom Buchele 312-759-3400
SIERRA CLUB TO SUE FEDS OVER STATE HABITAT
GRANTS:
USFWS IGNORES LAW IN GIVING OUT $350 MILLION IN GRANTS
Lansing, MI: Officials of the Sierra Club, the nation's largest
grassroots
environmental organization, today announced that they will sue
the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to halt systematic abuses of
federal laws
intended to restore wildlife habitat. The Sierra Club's
lawsuit would protect
America's f orests, wetlands and other wildlife
habitat from illegal
clearcutting and manipu lation by bringing the
nation's largest habitat
management program into complian ce with the
Endangered Species Act and other
environmental laws.
At issue is how
federal funds provided under the Pittman-Robertson Act ( the
Federal Aid in
Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937) are spent by states under
grants from the
USFWS. The Pittman-Robertson Act was created to distribute
federal funds to
states to improve and restore habitat for wild birds and
mammals. These
funds are derived from taxes paid on guns, ammunition and
archery
equipment.
According to the Sierra Club, activities in Michigan funded
under the
Pittman-Robertson Act are having devastating effects on forests
and wetlands,
including the clear cutting of large swaths of state-owned
land. The USFWS
has permitted the Michigan DNR, and possibly other
state wildlife agencies,
to use Pittman-Robertson funds to pay for
unsustainable and environmentally
damaging activities, immune from public
scrutiny and in violation of federal
laws. The Sierra Club claims USFWS,
which administers the program, has turned
a blind eye to this abuse,
refusing to enforce the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1970 (NEPA) or
the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA).
"For almost four years,
Sierra Club has demanded that the abuses of the
Pittman Robertson program
in Michigan be addressed, but the USFWS's has
steadfastly refused to
enforce the applicable laws," said Anne Woiwode,
director of the Sierra
Club's Michigan forest biodiversity project. "The
USFWS claims that
large-scale clear cutting and wetland manipulation paid for
with federal
wildlife habitat improvement funding has no environmental
effects. This
perverts the intention of the program," Woiwode said.
According to the
60-day notice of intent to sue filed with the USFWS today,
the Club's
lawsuit will allege that for more than 25 years the agency's
Office of
Federal Aid has systematically violated the ESA, NEPA and
the
Pittman-Robertson Act in its administration of up to $350 million of
annual
grants to states .
If successful, the challenge will set a
national precedent. It is the first
suit of its kind ever
brought.
"The USFWS acts as if the ESA and NEPA don't apply to
Pittman-Robertson,"
said Marvin Roberson, forestry consultant to the Sierra
Club's Mackinac
(Mich.) Chapter. "They don't get to decide which laws
they can enforce or
ignore."
In 1995 Michigan Sierra Club activists
learned that USFWS was considering a
five year grant worth $35 million to
the Michigan Department of Natural
Resources under the Pittman Robertson
Act. They were dismayed to learn that
the grant proposed massive
management actions, including clear cutting 40,000
acres of Michigan State
Forest land each year, while claiming the
environmental consequence of
these actions were so insignificant as to
warrant no environmental
review. Federal law requires that Environmental
Impact
Statements (EIS) be prepared for federally-funded projects
that
"significantly effect" the environment. Joined by two other
environmental
organizations, the Michigan Sierra Club petitioned the USFWS
to prepare an
EIS to disclose potential environmental effects of the
activities proposed
prior to approving grant.
After almost four
years of virtually fruitless negotiations with the USFWS,
the Sierra Club
decided that litigation was the only way to force the agency
to comply with
the laws. The Sierra Club is seeking a swift resolution to
this case
in order to assure that the flow of funds for legitimate
wildlife
management activities is not interrupted while the federal
government is
brought into compliance with its own laws.
"The USFWS
thinks that using grants from federal habitat protection programs
for
massive habitat manipulation, including clear cutting 40,000 acres
of
forest land a year, is exempt from environmental review. This is
clearly
wrong and clearly illegal. We think any reasonable federal
court will
agree," Woiwode said.
The lawsuit will be filed in
Federal Court at the end of the 60 day notice
period. The
Environmental Law and Policy Center, a Chicago based public
interest law
firm, will represent the Sierra Club.
#
# # #
Briefing Paper on Sierra
Club's Pending Suit vs. USFWS on Wildlife Habitat
Grants August 3,
1999
The Sierra Club has filed a notice of intent to sue the US Fish
& Wildlife
Service (USFWS) - Why?
The Sierra Club has compelling
evidence that the USFWS has violated the
Federal Aid in Wildlife
Restoration Act of 1937(Pittman-Robertson Act), the
Endangered Species Act
(ESA) of 1973, and the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA) of 1970 in
the process of providing grants to the Michigan
Department of Natural
Resources for wildlife management restoration
activities throughout the
state.
How have these laws been violated?
In a nutshell, the
USFWS has not been clear enough about what actions will be
undertaken with
approximately $7 million of grant money for wildlife habitat
management
given to the Michigan DNR each year, what the results of that
management
will be, and has not been forthright about the fact that some of
the
results will likely cause damage to endangered species. Below is
a
summary of Sierra Club's concerns about violations under each of the
three
laws cited.
The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of
1937 (Pittman-Robertson Act)
The Pittman-Robertson Act is a visionary
bill passed by conservationists 62
years ago at a time when much of the
nation's forests had been decimated by
over cutting, and wildlife habitat
had been devastated. The Act seeks to
"restore habitat for wild birds and
mammals" by imposing an excise tax on
guns, ammunition, and other hunting
supplies, which is then apportioned to
states in grants administered by
USFWS. Approximately $350 million per
year is distributed
to the states under the Pittman-Robertson Act, making it
the largest
funding source for wildlife management in the country.
Most of the
nation's state wildlife agencies were created as a result of this
program,
which required states to have wildlife management agencies in order
to
receive the funds and mandates states to dedicate all hunting license
fees
to match the Pittman- Robertson funds. The Act requires that for
USFWS to
distribute the funds to the states, the federal agency must
identify and
approve the work proposed to be done with the state's grant
moneys, when and
how the work will be carried out, and what the results are
expected to be.
The current USFWS grants to Michigan's DNR are so vague
that it is nearly
impossible to tell how these federal dollars will be
spent in Michigan, and
what the results will be. In addition, Sierra
Club contends that the work
approved almost always benefits overly abundant
game animals such as
white-tailed deer, which are already at population
levels well above
acceptable, while ignoring or harming the habitat needs
of many other birds
and mammals.
The National Environmental Policy
Act of 1970 (NEPA)
NEPA is one of the most valuable tools for citizens
to understand what are the
effects of programs and activities pursued or
funded by the federal
government. The statute requires that all
federal agencies specify what
actions they propose to perform, including
actions funded through federal
grants, and to document what will be the
expected positive and negative
environmental consequences of those
activities. NEPA requires the
compilation of this information so that
the agency can make informed
decisions regarding which action to pursue,
and so that citizens can see what
are likely to be the environmental
consequences of those actions.
In the case of Michigan's
Pittman-Robertson grants, the USFWS has claimed that
none of the actions
proposed to be carried out under the five-year,
approximately $35 million
worth of grants deserve any environmental analysis
whatsoever, and that all
of the activities are so inconsequential as to
deserve a "Categorical
Exclusion." The USFWS claim that all the activities
proposed qualify
for Categorical Exclusion means the agency contends these
actions are
insignificant enough to warrant exclusion from environmental
analysis, in
specific the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement or
an
Environmental Assessment as defined by NEPA.
This claim has been made
by USFWS despite the fact that the Michigan projects
approved by USFWS fund
activities include annual manipulation of 105,000
acres of wetlands and
associated uplands and 40,000 acres of clearcuts per
year (62.5 squ are
miles) on Michigan's State Forests. The amount of logging
approved is
significantly more than the total logging activity on many
National
Forests, which are required under NEPA to do environmental review. In
1997
USFWS admitted it had in fact violated procedural NEPA in issuing
Pittman
Robertson grants in 1995 to Michigan, but USFWS has not
fundamentally
changed the activities funded in grants approved since that
time from those
approved in 1995, nor did USFWS change its contention that
these programs were
Categorically Excluded from environmental analysis
under NEPA.
The Sierra Club believes that if USFWS were to actually
examine the results of
the proposed activities, it would be determined that
the activities are
likely to be very harmful to a wide spectrum of plants,
animals, and birds,
including some endangered species.
The
Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA)
The Endangered Species Act of 1973
requires that the federal government act in
manners which will not harm,
and in fact will help, the recovery of species
which are determined to be
at risk of becoming extinct or endangered. The
Sierra Club contends that
the activities proposed under the Michigan
Pittman-Robertson grants will be
detrimental to state or federally listed
threatened and endangered species
by eliminating essential habitat for rare
species. Of particular
concern, Sierra Club points to the intensive cutting
of older white pine
and northern hardwood forests under the Pittman-Robertson
grants.
These forest types are among the most endangered ecosystems in the
country,
and provide habitat for many rare species of birds, plants and
other
creatures. The USFWS has allowed logging and other management
activities to
proceed in these areas without considering the expected
effects on threatened
and endangered species and has ignored its mandate
under the ESA to require
on the ground surveys and scientific review for
the management activities
conducted under the Pittman-Robertson
grants.
If the Michigan DNR is the agency which will be actually doing
these
activities, why is the Sierra Club suing USFWS, and not
MDNR?
With any grants program administered by the federal government,
ultimate
responsibility to comply with federal environmental laws falls to
the agency
administering the grants. In this case, the MDNR asks the
USFWS for money to
do certain activities. It is the responsibility of the
USFWS, under the
Pittman-Robertson program, to determine whether or not the
moneys should be
granted, what the environmental effects will be, and
whether or not those
effects violate any other laws, such as ESA.
Consequently, the responsible
agency in this situation is USFWS, and
therefore, under the law, that is the
agency which must be sued to remedy
th is problem.
In addition, USFWS administers approximately $350
million of grants under the
Pittman-Robertson Act each year, and it appears
that the violations detected
in Michigan are present in many other states
as well. By bringing suit
regarding the grants in Michigan, the
Sierra Club will seeking compliance
throughout the USFWS with laws
governing administration of these funds.
The MDNR, however, is far from
absolved on these concerns. While it is the
respo nsibility of USFWS to
make sure that activities which are federally
funded meet the law, the
Sierra Club has also been in long-term discussions
with MDNR regard ing
whether or not many of the habitat manipulation
activities on state land
vio late laws such as ESA and the Michigan ESA.
Is there anything wrong
with habitat activities to benefit deer and other
game
species?
Managing for healthy habitats and populations of deer
and game animals is a
good idea, and one which the Sierra Club supports.
However, managing for
populations of game animals which are so large as to
be unhealthy, at the
expense of other species, whether endangered or not,
is irresponsible and
illegal. Currently, Michigan has a deer population so
out of control that
there were 66,000 car/deer accidents in Michigan last
year alone. In
addition, large deer populations are a contributor to
Michigan being the
location of the first ever recorded case of bovine
tuberculosis in wild deer
populations. Also, overbrowsing by deer has
resulted in the virtual ending of
northern white cedar as a commercial
species.
Why is the Sierra Club suing, rather than working through
negotiations and
other channels?
The Sierra Club has been in
extensive discussions and correspondence with
USFWS since the fall of 1995
on this exact issue. The Club has pointed out
repeatedly to USFWS these
violations, to no avail. While the Sierra Club
regrets the necessity
to sue the USFWS, we believe that this violation of the
law and potential
harm to Michigan's resources warrant this action. The USFWS
has left the
Sierra Club with a regrettable choice between bringing suit to
force
compliance with the law and simply ignoring potentially irreparable harm
to
Michigan's environment.
This briefing paper was prepared by the
Michigan Forest Biodiversity Program
of the Sierra Club, 300 North
Washington Square, Suite 411, Lansing, MI
48933. Contact Anne
Woiwode, Program Director at (517) 484-2372, Marvin
Roberson, Program
Consultant at (414) 332-6553, or Tom Buchele of the
Environmental Law and
Policy Center at (312) 759-3400 for
additional
information.
END
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