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Puffy, Feathered Sticking Point of a $612 Billion House Bill
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
WASHINGTON — Representative Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican,
spoke for many Americans this week when he conceded during a House
hearing that he had never laid eyes on a sage grouse. Had he seen one,
he surmised, he would have thought “a bobwhite quail got friendly with a
Dominecker hen.”
But a Republican maneuver on the $612 billion military bill to block the
Interior Department from adding the bird to the endangered species list
has set off a major congressional skirmish that has spilled over into
Western states, where the sage grouse is revered, and among
environmental groups that fear a steady erosion of the Endangered
Species Act.
The attempt to circumvent protections for the sage grouse — fluffy, with
a formidable chest once puffed, chickenlike yet more proud — as well
those for the lesser prairie chicken and the American burying beetle is
part of an ambitious push that House Republicans have pursued since
retaking the majority in 2010 to roll back, limit or unravel
environmental regulations.
They have put scores of major regulations concerning water, air, dietary
guidelines, coal mines, light bulbs and assorted creatures in their
legislative cross hairs as part of their broader policy agenda, largely
through amendments to large-scale spending bills.
“Cutting the administration’s unnecessary red tape that hurts businesses
and our economy has been, and will continue to be, a priority of the
Appropriations Committee,” said Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the panel.
The measures mostly died in the Senate when Democrats were in the
majority and refused to take them up. With Republicans now in control of
the Senate, the agendas of the two chambers will be more aligned.
Environmental protection has historically been a bipartisan issue.
President Theodore Roosevelt oversaw the expansion of the national park
system, and President Richard M. Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act
of 1973 and created the Environmental Protection Agency.
But in recent years, citing overregulation as a threat to the economy,
Republicans have taken on these rules more frequently. Since the 1990s,
they have made several efforts to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to
limit its application or render it toothless, mindful of their earlier
struggles against protectors of snail darters and spotted owls.
But the vociferousness and scale is far beyond previous years, said
David Goldston, the government affairs director for the Natural
Resources Defense Council, who was chief of staff for Republicans on the
House Committee on Science from 2001 through 2006.
Few of these fights have inspired as much emotional response as the one
over whether to list the sage grouse, whose numbers have fallen into the
thousands, as an endangered species.
“There’s a remarkable amount of national focus on the sage grouse,” said
Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which is funded
in part by contributions from the oil and gas industry.
“The impacts of this listing would be broader, geographically, than any
other endangered species that the government has ever listed. It covers
150 million acres of land, which is a lot of land, the whole western
United States. It’s 11 states. A third of the country would be affected.”
House Republicans, in advance of a legal deadline for final
determination of the sage grouse status, have gone at it in several
forms, most recently in the military bill. There they argued that giving
the bird special status would put military training operations in peril
because the birds’ habitat — which stretches across an array of Western
training areas — would be essentially off limits.
“There would have been a readiness impact,” said Claude Chafin, a
spokesman for the House Armed Services Committee.
While it is true that military branches can be disrupted by such
designations — the protection of the red-cockaded woodpecker once
brought training operations to a halt at Fort Bragg in North Carolina —
the military has made no request concerning the sage grouse.
Management of the bird has not “resulted in unacceptable limits on our
military readiness activities,” said Mark E. Wright, a Defense
Department spokesman.
“Because we have already undertaken these actions voluntarily, and
expect to need to manage for the sage grouse indefinitely, we do not
believe the listing decision — regardless of the outcome — will affect
our mission activities to any great degree,” he said.
The measure that would prevent the issuing of new protections for the
sage grouse came as part of the defense policy bill in the House
committee and it and similar amendments concerning the lesser prairie
chicken and the beetle passed with the bill on the House floor last Friday.
The Senate has yet to bring its military bill to the floor but is
expected to take up similar amendments.
House Democrats were not amused by these efforts. Armed with a large
poster of the lesser prairie chicken wielding a rocket-propelled grenade
launcher, Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, accused
Republicans of treating the birds as “a sort of feathery sleeper cell.”
The oil and gas industry — led by such groups as the Western Energy
Alliance, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the
Domestic Energy Producers Alliance — has mobilized to try to prevent the
Department of the Interior from barring large stretches of land as
potential drilling sites over concern that drilling and fracking
operations could harm the sage grouse.
These organizations and their member companies, like Continental
Resources, are among the top donors to election campaigns of major
players in Congress who have pushed legislation that would block
Interior’s actions.
This week, a hearing devoted solely to the management of the sage grouse
— large in wingspan, poor in flight skills and with an exotic mating
dance — was held in the House. At that hearing, titled “Empowering State
Management of Greater Sage Grouse,” officials from Western states said
that they were quite capable of managing the sage grouse’s happiness
without federal intervention. State plans “can be much more nimble than
federal plans,” said Kathleen Clarke, the director of Utah’s Public
Lands Policy Coordinating Office, although she lacked specifics on the
state’s plans. Ms. Clarke and officials from other states also said that
wildfires and predators were a greater threat to the bird than development.
Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, and wife of former
Representative John D. Dingell, seemed something other than impressed,
noting “tension in the room,” and added helpfully, “I myself have never
seen a sage grouse but I am married to a man who has.”
Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton contributed reporting.
---
Chinese Fleets Illegally Fish in West African Waters, Greenpeace Says
By ANDREW JACOBS
BEIJING — Chinese fishing fleets, driven by plummeting catches close to
home, are flocking to distant West African waters, where they engage in
ecologically ruinous bottom trawling, subterfuge and other illegal
activities that threaten marine resources in a region already under
pressure from overfishing, according to a report issued on Wednesday by
Greenpeace.
The study, the result of a two-year investigation, accuses hundreds of
Chinese-owned or Chinese-flagged vessels of taking advantage of weak
enforcement by African governments to indiscriminately net untold tons
of fish off the coasts of Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania,
Senegal and Sierra Leone.
Among the worst offenders, Greenpeace said, is the state-owned China
National Fisheries Corporation, whose ship operators were said to have
lied about their locations, underreported the amount of fish in their
holds and used damaging fishing methods that are largely banned in
Chinese waters. The report said that government regulators in Beijing
had been lax in enforcing regulations that govern overseas fishing.
“China is exporting to Africa the kind of destructive fishing practices
that depleted local fishing grounds off the Chinese coast,” said Rashid
Kang, the director of the China Ocean and Forests campaign at
Greenpeace. “At a time when China talks about win-win partnerships with
African governments and is concerned with improving its international
image, these kinds of practices damage marine resources, threaten local
livelihoods and undermine China’s soft power.”
Chinese interest in the waters off West Africa has soared in recent
years, prompted by a vast expansion of the country’s industrial fishing
fleet, mounting competition and declining stocks of marine life in the
coastal waters off China. Many long-distance fishing companies have been
encouraged to sail farther afield by generous government subsidies.
Greenpeace said there were more than 450 Chinese-owned fishing vessels
operating in Africa, up from just a dozen in 1985.
The group said nearly a fifth of the country’s foreign fishing fleet now
operates off the coast of West Africa.
China’s Foreign Ministry, responding to the Greenpeace report, said
Chinese fishing vessels that operate in the exclusive economic zones of
African countries abide by the agreements they have struck with national
governments.
“These ships and companies contribute to local employment, increase tax
revenue and contribute to the local economy, and are thus welcomed by
local governments and people,” Hong Lei, a Foreign Ministry spokesman,
said at a regular news conference on Wednesday.
Much of the research was conducted by a Greenpeace vessel, the
Esperanza, that observed Chinese fishing boats as they worked the
Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa.
Last fall, for example, it recorded illegal fishing by 12 Chinese ships
operating in the territorial waters of Guinea at a time when the
government was grappling with the Ebola epidemic. The report cited boats
that fished in prohibited areas, lacked licenses and used illegal nets
with tiny mesh openings.
Investigators documented 74 of 92 fishing boats that had turned off the
tracking devices mandated by international maritime law; others had been
manipulated to give out incorrect locations, including five ships that
claimed to be operating in Mexican waters.
In an apparent effort to reduce the licensing fees paid to governments,
the report said, a majority of the 59 ships operated by China National
Fisheries Corporation in West Africa had underreported their gross
tonnage by as much as 60 percent.
Reached by phone, an employee at the state-owned company would not
comment on the report’s findings. Employees of two other companies cited
by the report denied that they engaged in illegal fishing.
The Greenpeace report also highlighted what it described as lax
oversight by African governments, desperate for hard currency, that have
eagerly entered into agreements with Chinese fishing companies.
Among the biggest losers, Greenpeace said, were local African fisherman,
who complain of diminishing catches and increased costs.
“They are forced to travel further to catch fish and often have to
compete for space with industrial trawlers in dangerous waters,
increasing the risk of deaths at sea,” the report said.
Patrick Zuo and Kiki Zhao contributed research.
---
Study Links Dolphin Deaths to Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
By NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR
Lung and adrenal lesions found in dead bottlenose dolphins stranded
along the Gulf of Mexico between June 2010 and December 2012 are
consistent with the types of damage that marine mammals sustain from
exposure to petroleum products after an oil spill, according to a new
study published on Wednesday by researchers from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
The findings are the latest results from the Deepwater Horizon National
Resource Damage Assessment, an ongoing investigation by NOAA into the
spill, the largest offshore oil spill in United States history. Combined
with previous studies by the agency, this paper provides additional
support to a link between the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and
mass dolphin deaths in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
“The evidence to date indicates that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
caused the adrenal and lung lesions that contributed to the deaths of
this unusual mortality event,” said Stephanie Venn-Watson, a researcher
with the National Marine Mammal Foundation who was the lead author of
the report. “We reached that conclusion based on the accumulation of our
studies including this paper,” she added.
The researchers analyzed tissue samples collected from 46 dolphins,
shortly after they died, in the area affected by the spill. They then
compared them with samples from 106 dolphins that had died at different
times from the spill and in other regions, including in Florida, North
Carolina, South Carolina and Texas.
They found more instances of adrenal and lung lesions in the dolphins
that died near the Deepwater Horizon spill than in the other dolphins,
the team reported in the journal PLOS ONE.
A third of the Gulf Coast dolphins had a thinned or damaged adrenal
gland cortex compared with only 7 percent of the so-called reference
dolphins, the researchers said.
Damaged adrenal glands cannot properly produce essential hormones, and
can cause fatal problems in dolphins, according to Kathleen Colegrove, a
veterinary pathologist at the University of Illinois and an author of
the study. She said that there had been many reports of adrenal
complications leading to death in mink after exposure to oil.
“This was an unusual abnormality to us that has not been previously
documented in the literature,” Dr. Colegrove said of both the lung and
adrenal lesions. “That evidence is very striking and indicative that the
adrenal lesions we are seeing is consistent with oil exposure.”
The researchers also found that about a fifth of the Gulf Coast dolphins
had lung lesions caused by bacterial pneumonia, and that 70 percent of
that group died because of that condition. Only 2 percent of the
reference dolphins had any trace of bacterial pneumonia.
The researchers said that the dolphins most likely inhaled the fumes
from the petroleum products on the ocean surface. They added that
exposure to oil fumes is one of the most common causes of chemical
inhalation injury in other animals.
“These dolphins had some of the most severe lung lesions I have ever
seen in wild dolphins throughout the United States,” Dr. Colegrove said.
The study was criticized by BP, which owned the well that blew out. It
issued a statement saying that “the data we have seen thus far,
including the new study from NOAA, do not show that oil from the
Deepwater Horizon accident caused an increase in dolphin mortality.”
---
Workers Race to Clean Up Oil Spill on California Coast
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GOLETA, Calif. — More than 6,000 gallons of oil have been raked, skimmed
and vacuumed from a spill stretching across nine miles of California
coast in a cleanup effort being carried out 24 hours a day, officials
said on Thursday, but that is just some of the sticky, stinking sludge
that escaped from a broken pipeline.
Investigators have found that up to 105,000 gallons may have leaked from
the broken pipeline, and up to a fifth of that — 21,000 gallons —
reached the sea, according to estimates.
Federal regulators were investigating the leak as workers in protective
suits raked and shoveled black matter off the beaches, and as boats
towed booms to corral the two slicks off the Santa Barbara coast.
The leak occurred in a pipe that was carrying crude from a large
offshore rig toward refineries. The oil spilled into a culvert running
under a highway and into a storm drain that emptied into the ocean.
The chief executive of the company that runs the pipeline, Plains All
American Pipeline, apologized for the spill.
“We deeply, deeply regret that this incident has occurred at all,” the
chief executive, Greg L. Armstrong, said. “We apologize for the damage
that it’s done to the wildlife and to the environment.”
Mr. Armstrong said that the company had received permission to continue
the cleanup effort around the clock and vowed that workers “will remain
here until everything has been restored to normal.”
Crude was flowing through the pipe at 54,600 gallons an hour at the time
of the leak, the company said. Company officials did not say how long it
leaked for before the spill was discovered and the pipeline shut down,
or discuss the rate at which oil escaped.
Federal regulators from the Department of Transportation, which oversees
oil pipeline safety, were investigating the leak, the pipe’s condition
and whether there had been any regulatory violations.
The 24-inch pipe, built in 1991, had no previous problems and was
thoroughly inspected in 2012, according to Plains. The pipe underwent
similar tests about two weeks ago, though the results had not been
analyzed yet.
There was no estimate on the cost of the cleanup or how long it would take.
A combination of soiled beaches and pungent stench of petroleum caused
state parks officials to close Refugio State Beach and El Capitan State
Beach, both popular campgrounds west of Santa Barbara, for the Memorial
Day weekend.
Still, tourists were drawn to pull off the Pacific Coast Highway to
observe the spill from overlooking bluffs.
“It smells like what they use to pave the roads,” said Fan Yang of
Indianapolis, who was hoping to find cleaner beaches in Santa Barbara,
about 20 miles away. “I’m sad for the birds — if they lose their habitat.”
Biologists were seen counting dead fish and crustaceans along sandy
beaches and rocky shores.
The State Department of Fish and Wildlife banned fishing and shellfish
harvesting for a mile east and west of Refugio beach, and it deployed
booms to protect the nesting and foraging habitat of the snowy plover
and the least tern, both endangered shore birds.
The coastal area is a habitat for seals, sea lions and whales, which are
now migrating north through the area.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday declared a state of emergency because of
the spill, a move that frees up additional state funding and resources
to help in the cleanup effort.
The coastline was the scene of a much larger spill in 1969 — the biggest
in American waters at the time — that is credited with giving rise to
the American environmental movement.
Environmental groups used the spill as a new opportunity to criticize
the use of fossil fuels and remind people of the area’s notoriety for
oil spills.
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