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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 136 / Tuesday, July 20, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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document does not change the majority of the December 4, 2012, final rule currently in effect. The only sections of the rule that published at 77 FR 71876
December 4, 2012 that would change with this proposed revision are table 8
in the Exclusions discussion pp.
7194871949, the subunit maps related to the proposed exclusions pp. 72057
2012;72058, 72062, 72065 2012;72067, and the index map of Oregon p. 72054.
The regulations concerning critical habitat have been revised and updated since 2012 81 FR 7414, February 11, 2016; 84 FR 45020, August 27, 2019; 85
FR 81411, December 16, 2020; 85 FR
82376, December 18, 2020. Our December 4, 2012, designation of critical habitat for the northern spotted owl and the revisions proposed in this rule are in accordance with the requirements of the revised critical habitat regulations, with the exception of the use of the term primary constituent element PCE in the December 4, 2012, final rule; here, we use the term physical or biological feature PBF, as noted above, in accordance with the updated critical habitat regulations. The primary constituent elements PCEs are, however, the physical and biological features PBFs as described in the revised regulations: They are essential to the conservation of the species, and they may require special management considerations or protection.
Consideration of Impacts Under Section 4b2 of the Act Section 4b2 of the Act states that the Secretary shall designate and make revisions to critical habitat on the basis of the best available scientific data after taking into consideration the economic impact, national security impact, and any other relevant impact of specifying any particular area as critical habitat.
The Secretary may exclude an area from critical habitat if he or she determines that the benefits of such exclusion outweigh the benefits of specifying such area as part of the critical habitat, unless the Secretary determines, based on the best scientific data available, that the failure to designate such area as critical habitat will result in the extinction of the species. In making the determination to exclude a particular area, the statute on its face, as well as the legislative history, are clear that the Secretary has broad discretion regarding which factors to use and how much weight to give to any factor.
In accordance with our recently finalized regulation at 50 CFR 17.90a regarding the application of section 4b2 of the Act 85 FR 82376, December 18, 2020, based on the best
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information available regarding economic, national security, and other relevant impacts, in this proposed rule we identify the areas that the Service has reason to consider for exclusion and explain why they are proposed for exclusion. Economic impacts may include, but are not limited to, the economy of a particular area, productivity, jobs, and any opportunity costs arising from the critical habitat designation such as those anticipated from reasonable and prudent alternatives that may be identified through a section 7 consultation as well as possible benefits and transfers such as outdoor recreation and ecosystem services. Other relevant impacts may include, but are not limited to, impacts to Tribes, States, local governments, public health and safety, community interests, the environment such as increased risk of wildfire or pest and invasive species management, Federal lands, and conservation plans, agreements, or partnerships. We describe below the process that we undertook for taking into consideration each category of impacts and our analyses of the relevant impacts.
Consideration of Economic Impacts We did not exclude areas from our December 4, 2012, final critical habitat designation 77 FR 71876 based on economic impacts, and we are not now proposing to exclude any areas solely on the basis of economic impacts. Refer to the December 4, 2012, rule 77 FR
71876 for a description of the purpose and process of evaluating the economic impacts that may result from a designation of critical habitat. The final economic analysis of the 2012 critical habitat designation for the northern spotted owl found the incremental effects of the designation to be relatively small due to the extensive conservation measures already in place for the species because of its listed status under the Act and because of the measures provided under the NWFP USFS and BLM 1994 and other conservation programs IEc 2012, pp. 432, 437.
Thus, we concluded that the future probable incremental economic impacts were not likely to exceed $100 million in any single year, and impacts that are concentrated in any geographic area or sector were not likely as a result of designating critical habitat for the northern spotted owl. The incremental effects included: 1 An increased workload for action agencies and the Service to conduct reinitiated section 7
consultations for ongoing actions in newly designated critical habitat areas proposed for designation that were not already included within the extant
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designation; 2 the cost to action agencies of including an analysis of the effects to critical habitat for new projects occurring in occupied areas of designated critical habitat; and 3
potential project alterations in areas where owls are not currently present within designated critical habitat.
Although we considered the incremental impact of administrative costs to Federal agencies associated with consulting on critical habitat under section 7 of the Act, economic impacts are not the primary reason for the exclusions we are proposing in this document. See the December 4, 2012, final rule for a summary of the final economic analysis and our consideration of economic impacts 77
FR 71876; pp. 71878, 7194571947, 7204672048. Our critical habitat regulations require that at the time of publication of a proposed rule to designate critical habitat, the Secretary make available for public comment a draft economic analysis of the designation 85 FR 82376, December 18, 2020. However, we have reviewed the 2012 final economic analysis IEc 2012
and determined that because the January Exclusions Rule has not gone into effect and we are not designating additional critical habitat in this rule we are only proposing to exclude i.e., remove additional areas from critical habitat, the economic impact will simply be reduced and a new economic analysis is thus unnecessary.
Further, we have determined that the exclusion of the Harvest Land Base lands from critical habitat for the northern spotted owl would not result in changes in management or conservation outcomes under section 7
consultation for those lands. The BLM
considered the critical habitat designation in revising their RMPs in 2016, and the design and implementation of future projects will follow their management direction for each land use allocation as required by the RMPs. We analyzed the RMPs and concluded that the land use allocations and the management direction including carefully designed timber harvest within the Harvest Land Base would not jeopardize the owls continued existence, nor destroy or adversely modify its designated critical habitat. With the exclusions of the Harvest Land Base areas from critical habitat proposed here, the RMP land use allocations and management directions will continue to apply. The only change in section 7 outcomes as a result of these exclusions would be that BLM
would no longer have to consult on areas where critical habitat is excluded
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