Protecting Species or Endangering Development? How Consultation Under the Endangered Species Act Affects Energy Projects on Public Lands

Executive Summary Throughout its forty-three-year history, the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) has been one of the most celebrated environmental laws but also one of the most reviled. After passing with strong bi-partisan support in 1973, the ESA has recently faced growing opposition, amid concerns that it has failed to adequately protect species, while unreasonably impeding economic development. Much of the criticism has been directed towards section 7 of the ESA, which requires federal agencies to ensure that actions they undertake or authorize do not jeopardize threatened or endangered species, by consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”). Industry groups have argued that the consultation requirement frequently stops or delays much needed energy, transportation, water supply, and other projects. This study seeks to assess the impact of consultation, under section 7 of the ESA, on energy development on public land. To this end, the study analyzes 179 consultations undertaken between FY2010 and FY2014 with respect to oil, gas, solar, and wind energy projects on public land managed by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”). Basic information about each consultation, including a brief description of the project involved and a list of species affected, was obtained from FWS’s Tracking and Integrated Logging System. We also reviewed the biological opinions and concurrence letters issued by FWS and, for a subset of consultations, interviewed agency staff and industry representatives involved. Key findings from the analysis include: A relatively small number of energy projects authorized on federal lands between FY2010 and FY2014 went through the consultation process. The majority (eighty percent) of consultations that were carried out involved oil and gas drilling projects. Fifteen percent of consultations related to solar energy projects and five percent to wind energy projects. Only a small proportion (ten percent) of all oil and gas drilling projects approved by BLM from FY2010 to FY2014 were subject to consultation. In contrast, eighty-two percent of BLM approved solar energy projects and seventy-one percent of BLM approved wind energy projects underwent consultation. Most of the energy project consultations undertaken between FY2010 and FY2014 were completed within the 135 day time limit set in the ESA. There was, however, often significant back-and-forth between FWS, BLM, and the project proponent prior to the official start of consultation. This is a concern for industry, as pre-consultation discussions can add significant time to the review process and thereby lead to project delays. The need to consult can also give rise to significant uncertainty for industry. The assessment of project effects and the measures required to mitigate those effects often differs markedly between, and even within, FWS offices. Similar projects may, therefore, be assessed differently depending on the FWS staff handling the consultation. FWS has recently taken steps to address industry concerns regarding the potential for project delays and inconsistencies in the review process. To this end, FWS has issued a number of programmatic biological opinions, which cover multiple similar actions. Where a project is covered by a programmatic biological opinion, consultation tends to proceed more quickly, and there is less need for pre-consultation discussions. The existence of a programmatic biological opinion can also greatly reduce the complexity of consultation and generally leads to increased certainty for project developers.The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Busines

Protecting Species or Hindering Energy Development? How the Endangered Species Act Impacts Energy Projects on Western Public Lands

Since it was enacted in 1973, the ESA has been one of the most celebrated environmental laws, but also one of the most reviled. Industry groups argue that the consultation process frequently delays and sometimes halts much needed energy, transportation, water supply, and other projects and often dramatically increases project costs. Environmentalists disagree with this view, contending that the process actually rarely stops anything and that the FWS lacks the backbone to impose meaningful conservation requirements that would be costly or inconvenient for the project developer. In 2015, the authors decided to delve deeply into ESA §7 to analyze how it actually works in practice and to assess the validity of various parties’ claims about the consultation process. They focused on the impact of §7 consultation on energy development on public land. This Comment is an overview of that study and key findings. In a nutshell, the authors learned that only a small fraction of energy projects developed on public land are reviewed at all under §7. When it applies, the consultation process appears to go quickly and smoothly for the vast majority of oil and gas projects, for a variety of reasons. On the other hand, consultation on solar energy and wind energy projects tends to be lengthy and complicated.The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Busines

The Benefit of Inclusion in Early Childhood Classrooms

The purpose of this literature review is to demonstrate the benefits of inclusion in preschool classrooms and encourage educators to embrace this practice. According to the experts, inclusion provides social and academic benefits along with learning what preservice teachers know about inclusion. The reviewed research suggests when inclusion is incorporated in preschool classroom settings, it benefits all children. The conclusion of this review includes recommendations of developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood settings and how it can be used to make inclusive preschool classrooms a place for all students to learn and grow

Re-examination of the Effects of Food Abundance on Jaw Plasticity in Purple Sea Urchins

Morphological plasticity is a critical mechanism that animals use to cope with variations in resource availability. During periods of food scarcity, sea urchins demonstrate an increase in jaw length relative to test diameter. This trait is thought to be reversible and adaptive by yielding an increase in feeding efficiency. We directly test the hypotheses that (1) there are reversible shifts in jaw length to test diameter ratios with food abundance in individual urchins, and (2) these shifts alter feeding efficiency. Purple sea urchins, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, were collected and placed in either high or low food treatments for 3 months, after which treatments were switched for two additional months between February and September, 2015 in La Jolla, CA (32.8674°N, 117.2530°W). Measurements of jaw length to test diameter ratios were significantly higher in low compared to high food urchins, but this was due to test growth in the high food treatments. Ratios of low food urchins did not change following a switch to high food conditions, indicating that this trait is not reversible within the time frame of this study. Relatively longer jaws were also not correlated with increased feeding efficiency. We argue that jaw length plasticity is not adaptive and is simply a consequence of exposure to high food availability, as both jaw and test growth halt when food is scarce

Effects of a Token Economy on a Student with Autism Exhibiting Disruptive Behavior in a General Education Classroom

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a developmental disability that can cause significant social, communication, and behavioral challenges; and estimates that one in 68 children in the United States are affected by it (CDC, 2014). This prevalence rate is much higher than that of prior decades and has led to trends and factors related to educational programs that include an increase in the inclusion of students with ASD in general education classrooms. For this reason, it is crucial that teachers have access to efficient, teacher-friendly, and research-based interventions for students with ASD in the general education environment. One strategy that has been implemented in many different settings to influence behavior is a token economy system. The purpose of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of a token economy in decreasing disruptive behavior displayed by a student with ASD in a fourth-grade general education classroom. Using an ABAB single subject design, results showed that the student’s disruptive behavior was at an increased level during the initial baseline condition; decreased as the intervention was introduced; returned to an increased level during the second baseline condition; and decreased again once the intervention was reinstated. Furthermore, the student’s behavior continued to stay at decreased levels during a maintenance phase

Lagging behind: Fayetteville’s historic architecture

Architecture is a reflection of what is happening in the larger cultural, economic, and artistic scene. Therefore, understanding regional variations in trend adoption is significant to understanding the relationship of Fayetteville, Ark., to the larger national context. Local architecture is a reflection of the citizens of Fayetteville as consumers of popular culture. Simultaneous adoption theory was used as the framework of this study. The project objectives were to 1) document significant architectural styles within designated historical districts and nearby areas, and 2) compare local stylistic trends with national trends to determine fit. Findings indicate that Fayetteville lagged behind the national trend in architectural styles during its early years but that increased transportation connections and the establishment of the University of Arkansas may have helped to move the area into the mainstream

To read or not to read: the usefulness of informed consent

Informed consent is an important ethical factor for medicine, psychology, and other needed disciplines. It is necessary for participants to understand an intended research project or procedure in which they plan to take part. This study examined the usefulness of informed consent by administering such a form prior to an irrelevant questionnaire. A simple task was inserted into the reading, which allowed assessment of whether participants actually read the form. Results obtained through the experiment supported the hypothesis that the majority of the participants would not read the consent form. While less than half of each sex actually read the form, more women tended to read it than their male counterparts. Theoretical implications for these findings are discussed

Contagious Education

The use of data to govern education is increasingly supported by the use of knowledge-based technologies, including algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI), and tracking technologies. Rather than accepting these technologies as possibilities to improve, reform, or more efficiently practice education, this intra-view discusses how these technologies portend possibilities to escape education. The intra-view revolves around Luciana Parisi’s idea of “digital contagions” and participants muse about the contagious opportunities to escape the biopolitical, colonial, and historical rationalities that contemporary education now uses to govern populations in ways that are automated, modulated, and wearable

Emergent Analogical Reasoning in Large Language Models

The recent advent of large language models has reinvigorated debate over whether human cognitive capacities might emerge in such generic models given sufficient training data. Of particular interest is the ability of these models to reason about novel problems zero-shot, without any direct training. In human cognition, this capacity is closely tied to an ability to reason by analogy. Here, we performed a direct comparison between human reasoners and a large language model (the text-davinci-003 variant of GPT-3) on a range of analogical tasks, including a novel text-based matrix reasoning task closely modeled on Raven's Progressive Matrices. We found that GPT-3 displayed a surprisingly strong capacity for abstract pattern induction, matching or even surpassing human capabilities in most settings. Our results indicate that large language models such as GPT-3 have acquired an emergent ability to find zero-shot solutions to a broad range of analogy problems