All four agencies with a role in listing and considering rare, threatened and endangered species in environmental permit reviews participated in a panel discussion on legislation-- House Bill 1576 (Pyle-R-Armstrong) and Senate Bill 1047 (Scarnati-R-Jefferson)-- which would fundamentally change this process process for designating species at Tuesday’s DEP Citizen’s Advisory Council meeting.

The speakers were: George Ellis, President PA Coal Alliance; Dan Devlin, Director Bureau of Forestry, DCNR; Tom Au, Conservation Chair of the PA Chapter of the Sierra Club; Andy Shiels, Deputy Director of Field Operations, Fish and Boat Commission; Cal DuBrock, Director, Bureau of Wildlife Management, Game Commission; and Hayley Book, Director, Office of Policy DEP.

George Ellis, PA Coal Alliance, said the Alliance supports the legislation because it brings transparency to the process for designating wild trout streams as well as endangered species making the Fish and Game Commissions follow the same regulatory process all other agencies do.

He also said his group would not support a change in the scientific criteria used to designate the species.

Ellis predicted the House Game and Fisheries Committee would be considering amendments to House Bill 1576 in the near future that would re-focus the bill on the species listing process, instead of changing the definition, provide for better sharing of information on listed species and other changes.

He referred Council members to testimony he presented before the Committee during hearings in September.

Both Andy Shiels, Fish and Boat Commission, and Cal DuBrock, Game Commission, also referred Council members to the comments their respective Executive Directors made to the House Committee as background.

Shiels and DuBrock noted their agencies already use a public review process in listing species based on scientific recommendations and noted if the bill was adopted unchanged it would result in more species being listed as endangered or threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Generally, the agencies review environmental permits for species impacts within 30 to 40 days, a notion which was hotly contested by Ellis at the meeting.

Dan Devlin said DCNR is responsible for PA Natural Diversity Inventory and an online tool permit applicants can use to check to see if there are any rare, endangered or threatened species within their project areas.  He noted there are over 80,000 searches a year using PNDI.

Devlin repeated concerns DCNR expressed in testimony before the House Committee about terminology used in designating species.

Hayley Book, DEP, said her agency has not taken a position on the legislation, but noted DEP in June finalized a new technical guidance on consideration of rare, threatened or endangered species during permit reviews, which, among other changes, allows concurrent review of the permit application while PNDI issues were resolved with the resource agencies.

Book also distributed a draft fact sheet DEP was preparing on how PNDI species are considered in the permit review process.

Tom Au, Sierra Club, also said the bill was unneeded because it duplicates the public processes the Fish and Game Commissions have now to list species and said the existing environmental permit review process has not resulted in any permits being blocked.

The House Game and Fisheries and Environmental Resources and Energy Committees held two joint hearings on the bills in September hearing significant opposition to the legislation for sportsmens and environmental groups.

Citizens Advisory Council members asked questions and expressed their opinions about the legislation in several sides of the issue, but several members noted the bill does not deal with the “friction” caused during the environmental permit review process of going back and forth with DCNR and the Fish and Game Commissions to determine what steps should be taken to protect species.

The agencies present could also not provide Council with numbers indicating the number of PNDI searches done for permit reviews, how many of those searches resulted in “hits” on species and then how many resulted in the need to require follow up surveys or other steps to protect species.

In response to questions, panelists acknowledged both the House and Senate bills eliminated 587 rare or species of special concern, in addition to threatened and endangered, from the environmental permit review process.

Council members did not take any specific action after the discussion, but expressed their appreciation to the panelists for being willing to come to the Council to discuss the issue.

For more information, visit the DEP Citizen’s Advisory Council webpage.

10/21/2013