RENO - Gov. Kenny Guinn is confident Nevada's response to declining sage grouse numbers will be driven by science regardless of attempts by outside groups to politicize the issue, his spokesman said.
Officials for the Bureau of Land Management and the Nevada Farm Bureau echoed that sentiment Friday, saying political interference is doomed in such a high-profile dispute that affects more than 100 million acres of federal land in the West.
"I don't think there's room for any political persuasion on this. I don't think there are any back door deals to be had," said Greg Bortolin, the Republican governor's press secretary.
The comments came after an industry coalition's internal memo was publicized, revealing lobbying tactics and political strategies aimed at persuading the U.S. government to keep the sage grouse off the list of endangered species.
Among other things, the Colorado-based Partnership for the West - with 375 members including the Nevada Farm Bureau - outlined ways to provide political "cover" for officials at the Interior Department who will decide whether to list the bird as endangered.
"It looks like an excellent way to undermine the intentions of the Endangered Species Act by politicizing a possible listing," said Jon Marvel, executive director of the Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project, a conservation group backing listing of the bird.
The industry campaign memo - disclosed by The Associated Press on Thursday - calls for waging "a highly coordinated, multi-industry effort across 11 Western states to make the science-based case for the right listing decision" and engaging "political leaders in the West and in Congress to lobby the administration against listing."
"That effort just doesn't affect us at all," Bortolin said Friday. He said Guinn believes "you have to do the right thing, do the studies, present the facts and make the decision."
"We are more than three years down the road with the governor's task force, which has people from industry, environmentalists, all the folks who are concerned approaching this from a balanced and reasonable approach."
The conservation group RangeNet posted the memo on its Web site earlier this week but removed it Thursday after leaders of the industry coalition threatened legal action.
Doug Busselman, vice president of the Nevada Farm Bureau, said his group shares the coalition's view that a federal listing would be counterproductive and is confident a scientific review will yield the same conclusion.
"A political solution in this situation would not be sustainable," said Busselman, a member of Guinn's sage grouse task force.
He said he saw nothing wrong with the coalition's campaign.
"We've got as much right to communicate as anybody else. We've got a lot at stake here," he said.
The BLM has no objections to the campaign but doesn't expect it to have much impact, said JoLynn Worley, BLM spokeswoman in Reno.
"I think the political reality is that kind of effort or plan is something that happens all the time," she said.
