Wyo loses wolf document fight
By TOM MORTON
Star-Tribune staff writer
The U.S. Department of Interior had the right to withhold a group of documents about the federal government’s decision to reject Wyoming’s wolf management plan in late 2003, a federal judge ruled this week.
Federal agencies may exempt documents from the Freedom of Information Act if they record how officials candidly deliberated in making their decisions, U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson wrote in the 32-page order.
“The underlying purpose of the deliberative process privilege is to ensure that agencies are not forced to operate in a fish bowl,” Johnson wrote in agreeing with most of the federal government’s arguments.
“Therefore, courts must focus on the effect of the material’s release … and conclude that predecisional materials are privileged ‘to the extent that they reveal the mental processes of decision-makers,'” he wrote.
Johnson did order the Interior Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to disclose portions of two documents. The agencies already had released many of the documents requested by Wyoming, he wrote.
All of which may not mean much, said Cara Eastwood, spokeswoman for Attorney General Pat Crank and Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
Johnson’s decision has little bearing now on the continuing standoff between the state and federal government over wolf delisting, Eastwood said.
In October, Wyoming sued the federal government over its rejection of the state’s proposed wolf management plan, arguing the Department of Interior made its decision because of political consequences and not on scientific merit.
“The reason for filing (the FOIA lawsuit) was to understand the backdrop of how Fish and Wildlife made its decision,” she said. “This order has in no way affected the state’s view of whether it will prevail in lawsuit of the delisting of the wolf.”
Representatives of the U.S. attorney’s office in Cheyenne could not be reached for comment.
But Johnson’s order reflected his agreement with the federal government’s defense in the July 2004 lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Wyoming sued because the Fish and Wildlife Service refused to disclose documents that might have explained its decision in early 2003 to reject the state Game and Fish Commission’s wolf management plan.
The dual-status plan called for the wolves and their progeny reintroduced in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem in 1995 to remain protected in the national parks and adjacent wilderness areas, but the state would treat wolves as predatory animals — meaning they could be shot on sight — throughout the rest of the state.
Ten of 11 Interior wolf biologists concluded the plan — along with Idaho’s and Montana’s plans — would protect the wolf, and the state’s lawsuit demanded the undisclosed documents to determine whether the federal government had other reasons to reject the Game and Fish Commission’s proposal.
The federal government responded that the documents — correspondence and opinions of federal officials, the process of examining the state’s wolf management plan, the Department of Interior’s wolf public relations strategy, attorney-client privilege and other issues — were made before the decision to reject Wyoming’s plan or were part of the deliberations.
The state first filed its Freedom of Information Act request for the documents in early February 2004, Eastwood said.
In April 2004, the state — later joined by other groups — filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Department of Interior over the decision itself that rejected Wyoming’s dual-status plan.
The state asserted the department violated the Endangered Species Act and Administrative Procedure Act by ignoring the best scientific and commercial information, instead relying on “litigation risk management.” It also asserted the department violated the Fish and Wildlife Service’s own mandates to control wolves that killed livestock and wildlife.
In March 2005, Johnson dismissed this case.
On Monday, federal officials said Wyoming must submit a new wolf management plan by May 1 to meet requirements to allow removal of federal protection of wolves by February 2008. But Freudenthal responded that the state can’t adopt a new wolf management plan until the federal government changes its rules to allow killing of wolves to protect big game animals before delisting.
Johnson’s order on Wednesday probably doesn’t mean much now in light of the other litigation, Eastwood said.
Crank and other state officials still don’t comprehend what the federal government is trying to accomplish even though they have now seen many of the documents, she said.
“We neither understand nor agree,” Eastwood said.