Western Governors “strongly urge” the Department of Interior (DOI) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to engage with them in development of a federal-state coordination process that would facilitate cooperation on land management challenges such as mitigation policy.
The Governors' request came in comments submitted on Jan. 5, 2018, to Gregory Sheehan, Principal Deputy Director of FWS, regarding the Service's efforts to review both agency-wide and compensatory mitigation policies under the Endangered Species Act.
Mitigation, the Governors' note, plays an important role in wildlife management and conservation, and Governors rely on its use in developing and executing species conservation strategies. Further, "where state mitigation standards are in place, consistency with existing state policy should be a guiding principle for any revision to the Service’s mitigation policies." Read, download the comments.
Get the latest news about the West and its governors by following the Western Governors' Association on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
