Manatt Energy and Environment Partner David Smith wrote an article for Law360 about how a bee species is causing confusion for the regulated community and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW).
The Crotch’s bumblebee, listed as endangered as part of the California Endangered Species Act, is creating questions from developers, utilities and renewable energy project proponents across California about how to advance projects while complying with the Act. Smith explained standard operations are now triggering survey requirements with protocols that have not yet been defined by the CDFW, nor is the Department sure what the bee needs for conservation. Landowners have been advised to apply for “take” coverage under the California Endangered Species Act, but Smith said only one such permit has been issued, “and its provisions are ambiguous and without predictable compliance timelines.”
The bee first made headlines in a Daily Show segment discussing California’s designation of an insect as an endangered fish, stemming from a California Supreme Court decision allowing it to be listed under the California Endangered Species Act based on a reference to invertebrates in the statutory allowance for listing fish. Smith said this has also opened the possibility for other species not explicitly protected under the Act to be regulated similarly to the Crotch’s bumblebee.
“No one has any delusion that the candidacy of the Crotch's bumblebee is an isolated circumstance,” Smith said. “Now that the barrier to listing insects under the California Endangered Species Act has been eliminated, both the regulated community and the CDFW expect a tsunami of forthcoming listing petitions.”
Read the full article here.