Stop grousin’ around

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A Utah Congressman is trying to use a chicken to hijack the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 

It’s not a joke. Once more Rep. Rob Bishop (Ut-1) has decided to meddle with the NDAA, the bill that sets our national security priorities and takes care of our men and women in uniform. Last year Rep. Bishop launched a failed—and much maligned—attempt to hijack NDAA to thwart the bipartisan and collaborative efforts to safeguard some of the West’s most iconic and productive lands by shoe-horning in a politically-motivated rider.

{mosads}Since that time, much progress has been made on protecting the outdoor economy that depends on sagebrush habitat. 2016 saw unprecedented collaborative efforts from westerners of all walks of life—from ranchers to sportsmen, local business owners to elected officials, and conservationists to industry officials, to find a way to maintain healthy sagebrush landscapes. In fact, the multi-year effort, and the conservation commitments made in the plans, resulted in avoiding the need to list the sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act. 

Thanks to these efforts, development and activities continue on public lands in the right places. Meanwhile, iconic landscapes and the outdoor economy they support continue to flourish.  

These efforts, and their outcome, should be seen as a win-win. Rep. Bishop himself even said an ESA listing would be devastating. Unfortunately, it seems like one of the leading opponents of listing the sage-grouse on the ESA just cannot take “yes” for answer. 

Just last month Rep. Bishop introduced the “Greater Sage Grouse Protection and Recovery Act of 2016”, a bill that actively undermines one of America’s greatest conservation achievements and the bipartisan work and effort that western Governors and stakeholders have already invested to create the current plans. It is clear that Rep. Bishop’s bill would all but assure that the bird would warrant a listing under the ESA. 

What is also clear is that Rep. Bishop knows that his bill does not stand a chance to pass on its own merits as a standalone bill in Congress. That is why Rep. Bishop has tacked on his full bill as rider on NDAA.

Luckily, this week we learned that the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense Readiness,  Army, Navy, and Air Force, have sent letters that have made it abundantly clear that the sage-grouse conservation efforts would not impact the Department of Defense’s operations, training, or readiness.

As a military veteran who served as a sniper in Iraq, I am very seriously invested in seeing our Armed Forces’ priorities set appropriately, and ensuring our service members preparing to deploy have the proper equipment and training they need to do the job our country asks of them. Rep. Bishop’s wildly unpopular crusade to force the grouse into the NDAA could put those essential resources at risk—accomplishing less than nothing for our national security, and putting the West’s outdoor way of life at risk despite the fact that veterans like me depend on those public resources as we take up our lives as civilians. 

Rep. Bishop needs to step aside and allow the sage-grouse plans to be fully implemented. It’s a sad commentary on a sad time in Washington that any member of Congress would play political games with the NDAA as an opportunity to derail years of westerners’ collaborative hard work and progress. 

Garett Reppenhagen served as a U.S. Army cavalry scout sniper in the 1st Infantry Division in Kosovo and Iraq and currently works as the Rocky Mountain director of Vet Voice Foundation.