Idaho sues over Interior’s sage grouse ruling

BOISE – Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and the state Legislature on Friday filed a lawsuit over the Obama administration’s sage grouse ruling, even though that ruling said endangered species protections for the sage grouse were not warranted.

The lawsuit contends the process behind amendments to federal land-use plans aimed at protecting the birds imposed unprecedented and unnecessary restrictions on Idaho farmers and ranchers, sportsmen, recreationists, employers and others.

The state didn’t want an Endangered Species Act listing, but “in many ways these administrative rules are worse,” Otter said.

Otter and GOP legislative leaders say the federal government has wrongly ignored Idaho’s own efforts to prevent the bird from being listed as an endangered species.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Tuesday it decided to deny protections for the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The same day, the agency released final changes to federal land-use plans in 11 Western states designed to protect the bird’s habitat.

In Idaho, about 10.5 million acres are designated as either core or important sage grouse habitat.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleges the federal government violated the law by failing to complete the federal planning process in an open and transparent manner, or to complete an analysis of the newly ordered land-use restrictions.

In addition to Idaho, officials in Nevada and some mining companies sued over the sage grouse plan.

To shield the sage grouse from possible extinction, Department of the Interior officials want to withdraw 10 million acres of land from future mining claims, prohibit oil and gas drilling near the bird’s breeding grounds and impose new reviews on livestock grazing permits.

Such steps to limit disturbance of the sagebrush habitat where grouse dwell were a key factor in the government’s decision Tuesday to reject listing the bird as threatened or endangered.

North America’s greater sage grouse population once numbered an estimated 16 million birds. In recent decades, the species lost roughly half its habitat to development, livestock grazing and an invasive grass that’s encouraging wildfires in the Great Basin of Nevada and adjoining states. There are now an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 birds.