Denver, CO — September 22, 2020 — Mountain States Legal Foundation last week threw a penalty flag on environmental groups for their continued attacks on the federal government’s successful grizzly bear recovery program; in this case, they are asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana to give non-binding federal “guidance documents” the same force of law as official regulatory edicts.
MSLF, on behalf of its clients Wyoming Stock Growers Association, Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, and Utah Farm Bureau Federation, concluded briefing in the case Center for Biological Diversity v. Bernhardt. In court filings, MSLF described the move by the Center for Biological Diversity as an unprecedented attempt to sidestep the normal regulatory and recovery process — inviting even more Endangered Species Act-related litigation, which will further delay the recovery of endangered species and could cost taxpayers millions of dollars in unnecessary litigation.
“The plaintiffs in this case want the court to upend the normal regulatory process by making currently non-binding recovery plans legally binding,” explained MSLF Attorney Cody J. Wisniewski. “Worse, they’ll also be slowing and hampering wildlife recovery efforts, by inviting more unnecessary litigation and binding the hands of wildlife managers who need flexibility, not more bureaucratic rigidity.”
Wisniewski points to the decades-long, successful recovery of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear and U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s changing focus to the recovery and expansion of other grizzly bear populations as proof that the current approach is working. CBD and similar groups want to change the rules of the game now so they can micromanage the recovery program through litigation and continue to deny the recovery effort’s success.
“If CBD wins this case, environmental organizations could try to sue at any point in the recovery process. The practical outcome would be to worsen the already-debilitating administrative gridlock and prevent the government from actually doing what is best to recover a species,” Wisniewski adds. “That will allow organizations to place additional roadblocks on the recovery of species, even halting the process for years on end, all in furtherance of their goal of maintaining federal control over as many species as possible.”
Please follow these links – here and here — for more details about this case.
