State may sue feds over wolves
By BILL LUCKETT
Star-Tribune capital bureau Tuesday, February 03, 2004
CHEYENNE — State attorneys are preparing to go to court to appeal the
U.S. Department of Interior’s recent rejection of Wyoming’s wolf
management plan, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Tuesday.
At the same time, state officials have filed a federal Freedom of
Information Act request for all U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service documents
related to several aspects of gray wolf reintroduction and management.
Freudenthal also plans to write Interior Secretary Gale Norton an outline
of the past year’s events in which, Freudenthal claims, the federal
government changed its initial position supporting the state’s wolf
management law.
Plus, he said, the Interior Department’s scientific review of the state’s
wolf management plan passed muster with 10 of the 11 federally appointed
biologists who studied it, yet the agency still decided to reject the
state plan.
Wyoming, Montana and Idaho must craft management plans that the Interior
Department believes will provide for a sustainable wolf population before
the agency will consider removing the gray wolf from the federal
Endangered Species List.
“It is our belief that the actions taken by the department were not based
on the scientific reviews but were essentially undertaken on another
basis,” Freudenthal told a group of agriculture industry representatives
Tuesday.
He said the state will relay that message to Norton.
“At the same time, the Attorney General’s Office is working on a proper
way to characterize this rejection of our plan as final agency action so
that it will be subject to appeal under the Administrative Procedures Act
and we can proceed to court,” Freudenthal said.
State Rep. Mike Baker, R-Thermopolis, and Sen. Delaine Roberts, R-Etna,
cochairmen of the Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural
Resources Interim Committee, backed Freudenthal’s plan to work toward
suing the federal government over its wolf decision.
Agriculture industry representatives also liked the strategy.
Baker said the state can either stand its ground, cave in to the latest
Interior Department line, or negotiate with the agency to find some middle
ground.
Negotiation is not feasible when the Legislature’s 2004 session ends in
early March, he said, and Interior officials have failed to take a
consistent position on the issues.
“I don’t know how anybody can negotiate at this point. That’s the way I
view it,” Baker said. “Who’s going to negotiate with whom? … Who am I
negotiating with? Who has the authority to say, ‘Here’s where we stand?’
That is very frustrating, very, very frustrating, as you all know.”
He and Rep. Bruce Burns, R-Sheridan, plan to draft legislation in an
effort to meet the latest Interior demands, Baker said, though he hopes
they won’t amend the state’s current wolf management law.
“So today, in my opinion, we have two options: knuckle under or fight,” he
said. “I’m voting for fight.”
Roberts said he had been accurately called “obstinate” in his stance on
maintaining Wyoming’s dual classification of wolves as somewhat protected
trophy game animals in parts of the state and as predators that can be
killed at will in others.
He, too, favored leaving the state’s wolf management law as it is, as did
Freudenthal.
“The other issue that has been asked about is do I want to see legislation
pass and reach my desk which would accommodate the three concerns raised
by the recent rejection letter, and frankly, I have no desire to see such
legislation reach my desk,” Freudenthal said.
Fish and Wildlife Service Director Steve Williams cited three specific
concerns in his letter to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department rejecting
Wyoming’s plan: predator classification, the number of packs the state
proposed maintaining, and the minimum pack size.
Freudenthal said that flew in the face of a Feb. 21, 2003, letter from
Interior official Craig Manson, who stated that the Fish and Wildlife
Service had determined Wyoming’s plan to maintain 15 wolf packs in
Wyoming, including eight inside national parks, would satisfy conditions
for getting a wolf plan approved.
Manson also wrote U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., a similar letter.
“Based on those assurances, the Legislature acted, and I was proud to sign
that legislation which we thought had put this issue to rest,” Freudenthal
said.
But now that the state plan has been rejected, he said, the state is
mulling its legal options.
He said Wyoming’s position is that the rejection of Wyoming’s plan
constitutes a final agency action, which would give the state the right to
appeal under the Administrative Procedures Act.
“If it works out as we hope it does, it is our expectation to file a
notice of intent to sue and to proceed to try to get this decision
properly reviewed,” Freudenthal said.
He said he is reluctant to formally petition to remove the gray wolf from
the Endangered Species List, because that action would trigger an entirely
new procedure and a new administrative record to use to decide the merits
of the request.
Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, said he has spoken with Williams, who plans to
be in Wyoming next week when the legislative session begins and may be
willing to negotiate details of a wolf management agreement.
“I said, ‘Come with your hat that gives you some sort of authority, and
talk to us,'” Childers said.
Freudenthal was not optimistic about Williams’ visit leading to any
resolution of the dispute.
“I’m willing to talk to anybody, but we’re going to proceed on this course
until we have an incredibly good reason not to,” he said.