Transcript Slide 1

Anticipating Siting
Problems
• Lee Paddock
• Associate Dean for Environmental Legal
Studies
• The George Washington University Law
School
• [email protected]
New Forms of
Governance
• Environmental problems are very different
than they were 20 or even 10 years ago
• Increasing understanding that some of these
problems, especially species and water
quality issues must be dealt with at the
ecosystem scale
Governance
• The problems we face require what might
be referred to as shared or diffuse
governance
• Government retains a major role and still
utilizes traditional command and control
tools in a number of circumstances
Governance
• Growing understanding that we can’t
simply rely on government by itself to solve
problems
• Increasing pressure on companies to be
good environmental citizens
• Anticipating and avoiding problems an
increasingly important strategy
Governance
• Among the new approaches are those that
rely more on knowledge and collaboration
to drive change
• These tools inform and engage the private
sector and NGOs to help leverage new
ideas, new solutions and new resources to
achieve better environmental outcomes
Don Kettl
• Five imperatives for a new and more
effective governance strategies:
• A policy agenda that focuses more on
problems than on structures
• Political accountability that works more
through results than on processes
Five Imperatives
• Public administration that functions more
organically, through heterarchy [a
horizontal form of management in which
power is shared], than rigidly through
hierarchy
• Political leadership that works more by
leveraging action than simply by making
decisions
5 Imperatives
• Citizenship that works more through
engagement than remoteness.
• DONALD F. KETTL, THE NEXT GOVERNMENT OF
THE UNITED STATES: CHALLENGES FOR
PERFORMANCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY 8 (2005),
available at
http://www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/KettlR
eport.pdf.
Governance
• The approach described by Don Kettl and
that are part of the governance challenge are
important in thinking about energy siting
• I am going to focus on two developments
that can advance this new governance
concept: Natural Heritage Inventories and
Landscape Conservation Copperatives
Natural Heritage
Inventories
• The Natural Heritage Information
System (NHIS) provides information on
Minnesota's rare plants, animals, native
plant communities, and other rare features.
NHI
• The NHIS is continually updated as new
information becomes available, and is the
most complete source of data on
Minnesota's rare or otherwise significant
species, native plant communities, and other
natural features.
• Its purpose is to foster better understanding
and conservation of these features
NHI
• Developed in 1974 by the Nature
Conservancy to identify species that needed
protection before acquiring land
• Nature Conservancy helped establish state
programs
• NHI programs in all 50 states, Canadian and
11 other countries in the Americas
• The umbrella organization is Natureserve
NHI Homes
• Most common home is state natural
resources or parks agencies but in Montana
it is the state library and in Wyoming it is
the University of Wyoming
NHI Funding
• Most states fund the program through a
variety of mechanisms including general
fund money, hunting and fishing license
fees, tax form check offs, license plate
revenue and consulting fees
• North Dakota provides no state funding
NHI Services
• Most states provide GIS files (referred to as
Shapefiles) for the area of interest and many
will provide biologists comments on species
in the area.
• South Dakota provides a specific wind
generation packet that includes bat
identification a nd wind siting regulations
• North Dakota does not provide biologist
comments
Minnesota
• State law requires a “description” of
habitats and communities threatened or
endangered “as determined by NHI
database” for wind farms over 5 megawatts
Data Requests
Private
State Agencies
Federal Agencies
North Dakota
Montana
Library System Confidentiality
South Dakota
Wyoming
Unable to Obtain Data
Minnesota
Idaho
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NHI Conclusions
• No data on how valuable users found the
information
• Data is for public land but can be indicative
of species on nearby private land
• A lot of use in some states like Idaho
• Rarely mandated
NHI Conclusions
• Could be a very helpful governance tool in
avoiding species disputes if better supported
in some states and more widely used in
more states
Landscape Conservation
Cooperatives (LCC)
New Department of Interior partnership
approach for applying scientific tools to
increase understanding of climate change
through partnerships with other agencies and
with others outside of government
Secretary’s Order 3289, Feb. 2010
LCCs
• Purpose: To coordinate an effective
response to its impacts on tribes and on
land, water, ocean, fish and wildlife, and
cultural heritage resources that the
Department manages resulting from climate
change
LCC
• Premises:
– Management responses to the broad impacts of climate
change must be coordinated at the landscape level
– Working partnerships among Interior bureaus and
agencies, other federal, state, tribal and local
governments, and private landowner partners are
needed
– Linking science to resource management decisions to
result in targeted, science-based solutions that can adapt
as the information changes will improve outcomes
Premises
– Conservation agencies are inter-dependent on
one another as well as on private landowners
– It is outcomes rather than outputs that matter
– Resources need to be leveraged and
– The Agency must strategically target science to
inform conservation decisions and actions
Map courtesy of
the US FWS
LCCs
• Seek to dissolve state boundaries so
conservation activities can occur at the scale
that matters to species
• Operate as self-directed science
partnerships
• Create a forum that will inform and improve
conservation delivery on the ground
LCCs
• Integrate adaptive management concepts to
ensure conservation delivery is based on the
best scientific data and information
available
• Expand upon the US FWS Strategic Habitat
Conservation program
LCCs are NOT
• Regulatory agencies
• Owned or Led by the DOI
• Replacements for existing partnerships or
coalitions
• Brand new ways of operating
• They are designed to be shared enterprises
Potential LCC Products
• GIS maps of sensitive species habitat range
• Interpretation of climate change models on
geographic areas
• Anticipated species and habitat responses to
climate change
• Recommendations to provide for species
linkage across landscape in response to
anticipated climate change changes
LCCs and Renewable
Energy
• BLM’s Ecoregions Approach
– Internal BLM program to integrate landscape
level environmental impacts analysis to public
lands management
– Complementary to LCCs
– Rapid Ecoregions Assessments
Conclusions
• Very new program
• Mostly government agencies now, some
NGOs and a few private actors
• Could be a forum that would help anticipate
issues with energy facility siting early on
and facilitate resolution of species and
habitat conflicts but it is too soon to tell
what may happen