96
Cattlemen’s Association (representing landowners positioned to sell
credits to oil and gas firms) and co-solicited relevant Colorado state agencies, and firms in the energy industry to participate in the creation and
governance of the exchange (Large and Wolf 2018). The prospect of the
sage- grouse gaining protection from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service
through the ESA—and the political and economic fallout of regulation
under the ESA—is generally understood as motivating this state-level
cooperation. As a market-based approach to environmental management,
habitat offsetting is linked to experience with the Clean Air Act, stream
bank and wetlands mitigation banking, and the Clean Development
Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol. Reliance on market exchange to
structure environmental management grants flexibility to individual firms,
responds to criticisms of coercive bureaucratic controls, and ostensibly
produces conservation at least aggregate cost. These traits lend habitat
offsetting a modern and practical sensibility, which resonates positively
with a broad range of relevant actors and varied logics of coordination.
Despite the elegance of the concept, after seven years of design and
consultation, the exchange has not generated any habitat offsets. To
repeat, the exchange has not supported any transactions that advanced
conservation. Regardless of the capacity of the exchange to function, however, the concept of the exchange has produced a sustained dialogue
among the central public and private sector policy actors in Colorado and
nationwide.
Prospects for further development of the exchange were damaged in
the summer of 2018 when the oil and gas industry formally announced
that they were resigning from the exchange governance board and that
they were not willing to play a further role in its development unless the
expectations for offsetting were ratcheted downward. This announcement was followed by EDF shifting their personnel away from development of the exchange. The timing of this rupture was tightly linked to an
announcement by the US Secretary of Interior ending mandates that supported compensatory mitigation under ESA. This policy decision was
explicitly tied to ambitions to promote ‘energy independence’. Over the
past year, the Trump administration has continued to roll back legal protections for sage-grouse and, more broadly, to weaken ESA (Davenport/
NY Times 2019).
The habitat exchange was created to serve as a primary vehicle for holding the oil and gas industry accountable for sage-grouse habitat degradation, and it is a primary vehicle for demonstrating to federal regulators—and
S. WOLF
Cattlemen’s Association (representing landowners positioned to sell
credits to oil and gas firms) and co-solicited relevant Colorado state agencies, and firms in the energy industry to participate in the creation and
governance of the exchange (Large and Wolf 2018). The prospect of the
sage- grouse gaining protection from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service
through the ESA—and the political and economic fallout of regulation
under the ESA—is generally understood as motivating this state-level
cooperation. As a market-based approach to environmental management,
habitat offsetting is linked to experience with the Clean Air Act, stream
bank and wetlands mitigation banking, and the Clean Development
Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol. Reliance on market exchange to
structure environmental management grants flexibility to individual firms,
responds to criticisms of coercive bureaucratic controls, and ostensibly
produces conservation at least aggregate cost. These traits lend habitat
offsetting a modern and practical sensibility, which resonates positively
with a broad range of relevant actors and varied logics of coordination.
Despite the elegance of the concept, after seven years of design and
consultation, the exchange has not generated any habitat offsets. To
repeat, the exchange has not supported any transactions that advanced
conservation. Regardless of the capacity of the exchange to function, however, the concept of the exchange has produced a sustained dialogue
among the central public and private sector policy actors in Colorado and
nationwide.
Prospects for further development of the exchange were damaged in
the summer of 2018 when the oil and gas industry formally announced
that they were resigning from the exchange governance board and that
they were not willing to play a further role in its development unless the
expectations for offsetting were ratcheted downward. This announcement was followed by EDF shifting their personnel away from development of the exchange. The timing of this rupture was tightly linked to an
announcement by the US Secretary of Interior ending mandates that supported compensatory mitigation under ESA. This policy decision was
explicitly tied to ambitions to promote ‘energy independence’. Over the
past year, the Trump administration has continued to roll back legal protections for sage-grouse and, more broadly, to weaken ESA (Davenport/
NY Times 2019).
The habitat exchange was created to serve as a primary vehicle for holding the oil and gas industry accountable for sage-grouse habitat degradation, and it is a primary vehicle for demonstrating to federal regulators—and
S. WOLF