Obama order requires agencies to offset environmental impacts of development

Gregory Korte | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies will be required to take additional steps to offset the environmental impacts of development under a presidential memorandum signed by President Obama Tuesday.

The new policy expands on the federal government's 26-year-old "no net loss" wetlands policy, first established under President George H.W. Bush, which requires that any wetlands that are destroyed by human development be replaced somewhere else. The Obama policy applies that concept to any natural resource — not just wetlands — and also encourages agencies to replace those resources even before they're destroyed.

For example, the memorandum would require oil and gas producers, loggers and others who deplete natural resources to pay other companies to restore those resources nearby.

The executive action appears to be part of the Obama administration's alternative to listing the greater sage grouse as an endangered species. In September, the Interior Department said it would instead use land use plans to help conserve the bird's habitat, and Tuesday's action give those plans an even broader scope.

"We all have a moral obligation to the next generation to leave America's natural resources in better condition than when we inherited them," Obama said in the preamble to the memorandum. "American ingenuity has provided the tools that we need to avoid damage to the most special places in our Nation and to find new ways to restore areas that have been degraded."

The directive — which carries the same legal weight as an executive order — instructs federal agencies to adopt new regulations within two years.

Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, said the memorandum has the possibility of creating "the most far-reaching environmental regulatory manual" in history.

"It’s such a good example of executive arrogance," he said. "The presumption that I'm a Republican and therefore I want dirty air and I want dirty water. The reason I live in Utah is because I love that state. I want to protect the air and water there as much as anyone, but the president doesn’t want to trust me as a working partner."

Industry groups also reacted negatively, saying Obama's plan will replace state-level conservation efforts with bureaucratic federal land-use planning.

"Setting in stone a no net loss ideal essentially puts wildlife and other natural resource values above human needs," said Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance. "It’s very top-down. It’s not tailored to conditions on the ground. Just like the president has continuously ignored elected officials in Congress, he's now starting to ignore those inconvenient governors who push back on these policies."

White House and Interior officials would not answer questions about the order. But Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a written statement that the order was "a great step forward for conservation, building on a three-decade bipartisan history of presidential leadership that has encouraged innovation in land and water protection efforts."

A new Interior Department policy released with the White House action Tuesday "requires any new development in certain areas of grouse habitat to avoid, minimize, and compensate for any impacts from those development activities," Deputy Secretary of the Interior Michael Connor said in a separate statement.