News & Updates
Conference of Western Attorneys General
August 16, 2023
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ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT (ESA) |
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announces recovery of Arizona’s ESA-protected state fish, prompting delisting proposal
Fifty years of collaborative conservation are credited with gains for the Apache trout. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to remove the native Arizona Apache trout from the List of Endangered and Threatened Species. Collaboration and partner-driven habitat conservation, non-native trout removal, and reintroduction efforts helped save the Apache trout from the brink of extinction. If delisted, it would be the first gamefish to be removed from the list of threatened and endangered species.
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Washington firefighters now have more planning time and a longer season to ignite the controlled burns they use to prevent massive wildfires threatening landscapes and homes and blanketing the state in choking smoke. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved Washington’s smoke management plan, marking the first update to the state’s main document guiding prescribed burns in more than two decades. |
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EPA warns of chemicals in a creek following Garland Sherwin-Williams plant fire
There may be dangerous levels of chemicals in some North Texas waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency is warning people not to fish in Duck Creek or the East Fork Trinity River because of possible contamination.
The EPA continues to test waterways near the Sherwin-William paint plant in Garland after thousands of gallons of firefighting chemicals were used to put out the fire and explosions. Environmental groups are working with the plant to sample about 45 miles of surrounding waterways.
The city of Garland said early results show drinking water and sanitation systems are not affected, and they will continue to check those levels. For now, people are urged to avoid any contact with the potentially impacted waterways which begin near the intersection of Shiloh and Miller roads and extend to the East Fort Trinity River. People are also asked to avoid recreational activities in the Trinity River until further notice.
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The National Park Service Board gets Native American member for the first time in 88 years
When the Interior Department revived the National Park System Advisory Board, the requirement was that at least one of the 15 new members had to represent a federally recognized tribe. Aja DeCoteau, a citizen of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation who has tribal lineage with the Cayuse, Nez Perce, and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians will make history when she joins the National Park System Advisory Board for its first meeting in nearly three years.
Native American representation on the board is significant because of the history of this country's national parks, the tribe’s homelands are now some of the most celebrated parks, including Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.
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Attorney General Sean D. Reyes has started the process of appealing the ruling in the recent Monuments case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. This first step is a necessary stop before any trip to the U.S. Supreme Court. |
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BLM scrapping much-anticipated livestock grazing rule
The Bureau of Land Management is abandoning its work over the past year to write a new rule updating livestock grazing regulations for the first time in nearly three decades. Instead, BLM began telling interested parties that it will focus on implementing potential management changes via policy and internal guidance to bureau field offices.
The news comes as a surprise to some, as the White House in its Unified Agenda released in June targeted issuing a formal notice of proposed rulemaking in September, which would have updated how the bureau manages grazing activity on more than 150 million acres of federal lands.
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$50 Million to Enhance Key Water Infrastructure in the Upper Colorado River Basin Through President’s Investing in America Agenda
Historic investments are helping to protect and sustain the Colorado River System. The Department of the Interior announced $50 million over the next five years to improve key water infrastructure and enhance drought-related data collection across the Upper Colorado River Basin. The Bureau of Reclamation is making an initial $8.7 million investment in the fiscal year 2023 to support drought mitigation efforts in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming that will help ensure compliance with interstate water compact obligations, maintain the ability to generate hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam, and minimize adverse effects to resources and infrastructure in the Upper Basin.
The Interior Department has announced investments for Colorado River Basin states, which will yield hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water savings each year once these projects are complete. Eight new System Conservation Implementation Agreements in Arizona that will commit water entities in the Tucson and Phoenix metro areas to conserve up to 140,000-acre feet of water in Lake Mead in 2023, and up to 393,000-acre feet through 2025.
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Audubon of Kansas (AOK) is suing the Kansas Department of Agriculture in state court in hopes of restoring Quivira National Wildlife Refuge’s water rights. Quivira is a 22,135-acre refuge and relies on large, open ponds and impoundments to hold ducks, geese, swans, cranes, pelicans, egrets, plovers, and many other migratory bird species.
Quivira and its state-owned partner-in-habitat, nearby Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area, combine to create one of the most beloved waterfowl hunting hotspots in the region. But as the Great Plains continue to deal with a crippling drought, Kansas farmers working land upstream from Quivira are drawing water for irrigation—water that would otherwise go to the refuge. AOK argues that this overuse of water goes against state water law and notes that the issue has been going on for decades.
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New laws designed to honor Native American ancestry and history
The head of a Native American tribe is applauding three new laws in Illinois. The Illinois Governor has signed into law three bills that passed the state legislature with bipartisan support, which supporters said bring honor to past, present, and future Native communities in Illinois.
One law will allow students attending graduation ceremonies to wear traditional native regalia, while another law will allow for the expansion of Illinois public school curriculum to include Native American history. A third law allows the state to create cemeteries protected from public use on state lands for the reburial of repatriated Native American remains and materials, Illinois still possesses the remains of thousands of Native people, some dug up by the Department of Transportation during highway construction.
In 1849, the US Government auctioned off more than 1,280 acres of a reservation near the village of Shabbona. Illinois is the only state in the Midwest and just one of 15 states nationwide without a federally recognized Native American tribe.
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A federal probe could change the course of California’s bay-delta water plans
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is a key water source for many Californians. State tribal leaders and environmental activists are accusing California’s powerful water agency of excluding Indigenous residents and people of color from discussions about the future of the delta while diverting water to big agricultural interests and distant cities, damaging the local ecosystem.
Accusations will be investigated by the federal government. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced an investigation of the California State Water Resources Control Board stemming from a civil rights complaint filed by a coalition of state tribes and activists who allege the state discriminated against Indigenous residents and people of color.
The EPA has 180 days to release its preliminary findings, though it’s unclear how long the full investigation will take. The investigation comes as state officials move forward on major infrastructure projects that would affect the delta, namely a planned water tunnel and plans to build a reservoir north of Sacramento. The environmental groups and tribes are demanding those projects be put on hold until the bay-delta plan is updated to adequately protect the watershed’s ecosystem.
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Sacred Tribal Canyon Tests Limits of Potential Energy Bonanza
Drilling ban on federal land around Chaco splits allies. Energy royalties for tribes in impoverished areas are at stake. A House bill to nullify the current administration’s move to protect swaths of federal land from drilling is reigniting a dispute over energy development. The debate is dividing political allies and spotlighting the broader conflict between conservation, energy production, and economic growth for impoverished areas hoping to navigate going into the 2024 election.
At stake is roughly 336,000 acres of land in northwestern New Mexico sacred to multiple tribes and more than 20,000 individual Native Americans who stand to lose revenue from potential energy development. The area around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in the oil-and-gas-rich San Juan Basin already is the site of significant drilling.
The Chaco region embodies the complexities of the West’s checkerboard landscape, where boundaries among federal, state, tribal, and private lands aren’t as clear-cut as they appear on a map. This configuration complicates any effort to drill or mine the land. The Interior’s decision to protect the federal lands within Chaco’s 10-mile buffer zone doesn’t affect existing leases or any energy activity on non-federal lands. So allottees can still opt to lease their lands to oil and gas companies. But the affected lands are adjacent to allottees’ parcels, making it much more difficult for developers to extract natural resources.
Energy extraction has continued, although BLM hasn’t leased new federal land for oil and gas development in the 10-mile buffer around Chaco for more than 10 years because of concerns over environmental harm to surrounding communities as well as cultural sites. The Chaco debate also lays bare the challenge of helping impoverished, traditional energy communities make a transition to alternative sources of income.
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Montana judge sides with youth in historic climate trial
A state court said Montana is violating young people's constitutional right to a clean environment by ignoring the climate effects of fossil fuels. A Montana judge found that the Treasure State is violating its residents' right to a clean environment — delivering a major victory to the 16 kids, teens, and young adults behind the first U.S. youth-led climate trial.
Judge Kathy Seeley of the 1st District Court in Montana ruled that state lawmakers flouted Montana's constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment” when they passed a law barring agencies from considering the climate effects of fossil fuel projects. The state constitution guarantees a right to a “clean and healthful environment,” and Seeley found the Legislature violated that protection when it twice revised the Montana Environmental Policy Act to exclude consideration of climate emissions.
Lawyers for the Oregon-based Our Children's Trust, which represents the 16 youth in the case, Held v. Montana, had urged Seeley to consider instances in which courts have stepped in to correct governments that had failed to protect human rights.
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Buchanan v. Water Resources Dept., 2023 WL 5093879 (D. Oreg., August 9, 2023).Oregon Water Resources Department properly denied irrigators’ petition to stay its order while judicial review was pending of order requiring the irrigators to stop diverting water pursuant to the water call of the Klamath Tribes to protect their federal reserved water right to maintain water elevations in Upper Klamath Lake.
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The Bureau of Indian Affairs has published an updated list of federally-recognized Indian Tribal entities. This notice publishes the current list of 574 Tribal entities recognized by and eligible for funding and services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) by virtue of their status as Indian Tribes.
Published in the Federal Register, 88 Fed. Reg. 54654 (Aug. 11, 2023)
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Harris v. FSST Management Services, LLC, 2023 WL 5096295 (N.D. Ill., August 9, 2023).Arbitration clause in payday loan requiring enforceability challenges to be first submitted to arbitrator, with exclusive tribal court review in accordance with tribal laws, was unenforceable due to required waiver of state and federal consumer protection laws and lack of tribal court subject matter jurisdiction over nonmembers who never entered reservation.
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All summaries are posted in CWAG's google docs account, accessible through the link below. Should you have any issues with the links, contact Patricia Salazar at [email protected] with any questions.
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Conference of Western Attorneys General
5050 Laguna Blvd | Suite 112-323 | Elk Grove, California 95758
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