Bundle of bills eyed for possible ride on defense package

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PUBLIC LANDS: Bundle of bills eyed for possible ride on defense package

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E: Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Leading Democrats and Republicans are nearing a deal to advance a bundle of significant public lands bills, possibly as a rider to the defense authorization bill that could be released anytime, sources said yesterday.

The potential deal, which is being negotiated by leaders on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources and House Natural Resources panels, would include language designating some Western lands as wilderness while releasing other lands into multiple uses or conveying them for projects like mines and logging, according to sources.

Multiple congressional aides, both Republicans and Democrats, said the lands deal appeared complete last night and that negotiators were hoping to attach it to the fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, which is considered a must-pass piece of legislation. Congress has passed a defense bill annually for at least five decades.

But other sources both on and off Capitol Hill insisted no agreement had been reached.

Last night, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said a bicameral agreement had been reached to resolve Senate-House disagreements that had hampered NDAA, including proposed cutbacks in benefits for servicemembers, according to The Hill newspaper. A text was due to be released last night or this morning, the paper reported.
One congressional aide was less hopeful last night that NDAA would include the public lands bills. The source said it appeared Levin was "skittish" about including extraneous measures that could hamper NDAA's passage.

In spite of the uncertainty, public lands advocates were optimistic yesterday that House and Senate leaders have found a formula to break what has been a five-year logjam for public lands measures.

One Senate aide said the lands agreement has bipartisan, bicameral backing and includes a House-passed measure to protect more than 380,000 acres of federal lands west of Montana's Glacier National Park from future oil and gas and mining development and an amended version of S. 364, a bill by former Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to protect more than 200,000 acres along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front.
"We are modestly hopeful" that conservation bills will move during the lame-duck session, said Mike Matz, director of U.S. public lands for the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Negotiators are eyeing bills that have passed both the House Natural Resources and Senate Energy and Natural Resources panels, Matz said.

Such measures include bills to designate about 75,000 acres of wilderness in western and northern Nevada while promoting a copper mine; to add more than 20,000 acres to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington state; and to designate some 38,000 acres of wilderness in southwest Colorado while boosting access for snowmobiles and other forms of recreation. All three of those bills carry strong Republican support.

"There's a genuine interest in clearing the decks," Matz said.

But he cautioned that the situation remains "fluid" and that there "are a lot of big 'ifs,'" namely whether Armed Services leaders can hammer out a broader defense deal. If the lands bills miss the cut in NDAA, advocates will explore other possible vehicles, though there appear to be few options in a crowded lame duck.

Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Senate ENR Committee ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), said yesterday that "no deals have been reached."

Michael Tadeo, a spokesman for House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), declined to comment.

Spokeswomen for ENR Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Another environmental lobbyist said the lands deal does not appear "fully baked." A Senate aide gave lands measures a 50-50 chance of being tacked to NDAA but only if an agreement could be reached.

Other conservationists were silent when asked for details of the deal, fearing it could implode in the coming days or weeks.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who is the incoming chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, said yesterday that Hastings "wants to do as much as he can" to legislate before he retires at the end of this Congress.

"I really don't know what's included" in the package, he said. "Hastings is still chairman, and I want to respect that. He has been doing the negotiations."

Any bicameral lands deal that includes wilderness and conservation measures would likely contain legislation to enhance recreational access or promote energy development on public lands, because that has been a key demand of House Republicans.

Such measures could include S. 2440, by Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), which would extend and expand an oil and gas permitting program at the Bureau of Land Management. The measure passed the Senate in September by unanimous consent, and industry groups have been urging House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to take it up.
Environmental lobbyists are also watching vigilantly to see if a lands package includes a bill by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to promote the Resolution Copper mine near Superior, Ariz., a Murkowski bill to privatize timberlands in Alaska's Tongass National Forest or a Barrasso bill to streamline grazing permits on public lands -- measures that greens have vigorously opposed.

Andy Kerr, an environmental lobbyist who splits his time between Oregon and Washington, D.C., yesterday said he is worried about the possible inclusion of the "Grazing Improvement Act" by Barrasso and Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho).

"If either the House-passed version or the Senate ENR-approved version of the so-called Grazing Improvement Act is enacted into law, the Fish and Wildlife Service will have no option other than to list the Greater Sage-Grouse under [the Endangered Species Act]," he said in an email.

If a lands deal emerges, it is likely to be vastly smaller than the last major public lands package that passed Congress in spring 2009, which designated some 2 million acres of wilderness in several states.

Since then, Congress has passed only one wilderness bill, S. 23, which protected about 30,000 acres at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore along the northwest coast of Michigan's Lower Peninsula.
An aide close to the defense authorization negotiations said public lands provisions would have to be relatively noncontroversial to be included in the defense bill. Neither chamber is expected to have significant time for debate or amendments to the bill, so negotiators are trying hard to avoid divisive riders.

 

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PUBLIC LANDS: Major package of wilderness, parks and energy bills hitches ride on defense authorization

Phil Taylor, Manuel Quiñones and Annie Snider, E&E reporters
E&E: Wednesday, December 3, 2014

In a major bipartisan breakthrough, House and Senate lawmakers last night successfully attached a slew of public lands and energy bills to the defense authorization bill that Congress hopes to pass in the coming week.

If passed, the dozens of bills would represent -- by far -- the largest public lands package advanced by Congress since the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act.

The package, negotiated by leaders on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources and House Natural Resources committees and backed by leaders on the Armed Service panels in both chambers, represents a major compromise between conservation and development interests.

It would designate nearly 250,000 acres of new wilderness in a handful of Western states while preserving hundreds of thousands of additional acres from drilling and mining in states, including Montana and Colorado.

It would also allow the Bureau of Land Management to expedite oil and gas and grazing permits, promote a copper mine in Arizona and convey federal timberlands to an Alaska Native-owned corporation in the Tongass National Forest -- all major Republican priorities.

In total, there appear to be roughly 70 provisions in the natural resources title of the 1,648-page National Defense Authorization Act, which was crafted by members of the House and Senate Armed Services panels.

The House Rules Committee is set to consider the bill this afternoon at 3 p.m. in H-313 of the Capitol, and the lower chamber could pass the measure by week's end. In a joint statement yesterday, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the House plans to pass NDAA without change. They urged their Senate colleagues to also pass the bill without amendments.

The lands provisions "have been under consideration for several years and there is strong support in both Houses for including them in our bill," they said.

ENR and Natural Resources committee aides had been negotiating the lands package for at least the past month, sources said. A deal was reportedly struck within the past week.

But its inclusion in NDAA -- a must-pass piece of legislation -- appeared in jeopardy earlier this week after objections were raised by some Republicans. Levin was reportedly worried that including the lands measures could sink NDAA, which Congress has successfully passed annually for more than the five consecutive decades.

It wasn't until after yesterday's Senate caucus lunches that NDAA leaders agreed to include the resources title, one lobbyist said.

It remains to be seen whether senators who have historically opposed omnibus parks packages -- including Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) -- will oppose the package once it reaches the Senate floor.

It's also unclear whether the measure will garner opposition from any major environmental groups.

Like the 2009 omnibus bill -- which contained a controversial bill by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to authorize a road through an Alaska wilderness area -- the package attached to NDAA contains some potential poison pills for green groups.

They include a proposal by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to swap lands in Arizona to build a copper mine and a bill by Murkowski to convey tens of thousands of acres of the Tongass National Forest to Juneau, Alaska-based Sealaska Corp., allowing the clearcutting of some old-growth trees. The package also appears to have a proposal by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to expedite grazing permits on public lands.

Some environmental activists yesterday were girding to oppose the package if it included those three provisions.

It was not immediately clear last night whether, or how, any of the lands provisions have been tweaked from the versions that have passed committees in recent months.

Aides on the respective committees and major stakeholders in the conservation world and energy industry could not be reached last night.

Paul Spitler, director of wilderness campaigns at the Wilderness Society, said the bill is a "blockbuster."

"This bill would protect some spectacular landscapes across the western United States," he said. "Local citizens have been working to protect them for many years. We are happy to see these areas coming ever so close to being permanently protected."

Indeed, it has been nearly six years since a major conservation package has passed Congress. The only significant conservation bill to pass in that time was S. 23, in March, by Levin, which protected about 30,000 acres at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore along the northwest coast of Michigan's Lower Peninsula.

The drought led to pent-up demand for many members, some of whose bills had passed committees in both chambers and carried strong bipartisan support.

Such bills that made the NDAA cut would designate about 75,000 acres of wilderness in western and northern Nevada while promoting a copper mine; add more than 20,000 acres to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington state; and designate some 38,000 acres of wilderness in southwest Colorado while boosting access for snowmobiles and other forms of recreation.

Also included was a bill by Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) to designate the 45,000-acre Columbine-Hondo wilderness in Taos County, N.M.

"We are closer than ever to making historic gains in protecting some of New Mexico's most treasured landscapes," Heinrich said yesterday in a statement. "From designating the Columbine-Hondo as wilderness, increasing public access to the Valles Caldera, and establishing the Manhattan National Historical Park, to streamlining the oil and gas drilling permit process, these provisions will have a significant impact on growing our economy."

Mining, coal bills

One of the most controversial bills in the package would authorize a land swap near Superior, Ariz., to facilitate development of Rio Tinto PLC's Resolution Copper project.

The legislation, championed by Arizona's Republican lawmakers, plus Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, would give Resolution Copper -- a Rio Tinto venture with BHP Billiton Ltd. -- more than 2,000 acres of federal land in return for more than 5,000 acres of company land.

Conservation advocates and American Indian groups, particularly the San Carlos Apache Tribe, have for years been trying to block the swap, saying the mine would damage natural resources and culturally sensitive areas. A site called Apache Leap in the Tonto National Forest has been of particular concern.

As a concession to critics, the NDAA provision includes added scrutiny and National Environmental Policy Act review prior to the swap, which would also be used for mine permitting. The latest version of the measure would also ban mining under Apache Leap and create a conservation area there.

But the moves will likely not quell opposition. Even though the package appears headed for passage, land swap opponent and Arizona mining watchdog Roger Featherstone said, "There's a lot that can be done." He blasted the "cynicism of putting a bill like this in a defense bill" and called it a potential "poison pill."

Mining boosters cheered what they called a compromise. "Including such a package in the NDAA is well within the purview of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, as land exchanges have been a fixture in NDAA's for at least 25 years, across both Republican and Democratic presidencies," wrote Dan McGroarty, head of the group American Resources Policy Network.

Recent defense bills have generally included measures related to the supply of rare earth elements or a broader suite of so-called critical minerals important to national defense or economic needs. While not in the bill itself, an explanatory statement accompanying the legislation asks the Government Accountability Office to review federal efforts at securing supplies.

Another land deal in the package would make way for the city of Yerington, Nev., to buy and develop BLM property around Nevada Copper Corp.'s Pumpkin Hollow copper deposit. The idea is for the city to move forward in partnership with Nevada Copper, according to sponsor Rep. Steve Horsford (D-Nev.) and other members of the state's delegation.

The Yerington bill was one of several proposals in a broader Nevada lands package sponsored by Rep. Mark Amodei (R), H.R. 5205, that passed the House earlier this year and are now included in the NDAA.

A third mining-related land scheme in the package is meant to rectify a century-old surveying error by giving the Northern Cheyenne Tribe about 5,000 acres of underground coal reserves within the reservation. The current owner, Great Northern Properties LP, would get access to coal reserves outside tribal land as compensation.

The legislation, however, would prevent the company from strip mining the land.

 

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PUBLIC LANDS: House passes NDAA with major parks, development package

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E PM: Thursday, December 4, 2014

The House today voted 300-119 to pass the fiscal 2015 defense authorization bill, including what would be the biggest package of public lands, wilderness, parks and energy bills in nearly six years.

The defense bill would designate nearly 250,000 acres of wilderness in five Western states, protect roughly 70 miles of rivers and establish or expand more than a dozen national parks. It would also expedite oil and gas and grazing permits on public lands and convey more than 100,000 acres of public lands for economic development including mineral production, logging, infrastructure and community developments.

"This agreement represents a balanced approach to public lands management," said House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) on the chamber floor this morning. "It'll create thousands of new jobs and support energy and mineral production, transfer land out of federal ownership, and protect treasured lands through the establishment of several locally supported parks and wilderness areas."

Conservation groups cheered the bill's advance, even as other green groups remained deeply troubled over certain logging, mining and grazing provisions they said negate the bill's positives.

A handful of conservation groups today warned the bill would guarantee an Endangered Species Act listing for the greater sage grouse (see related story).

Voting "nay" were 32 Republicans and 87 Democrats. They included Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), top Democrats on Natural Resources, though neither articulated to what extent the public lands package influenced his vote.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) voted in favor despite having grave concerns with one provision in the lands package to convey Arizona public lands to a copper mining company, which he argued could offend American Indian tribes.

"We're in a difficult moment near the end of a session and have must-pass legislation," Cole said on the floor, noting that he thought the bulk of NDAA is good and bipartisan. "Like anything in a half-a-trillion-dollar bill, I can quibble with this or that. But the reality is, I favor the legislation."

The bill's passage drew applause from Trout Unlimited and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

"Passage of these conservation bills is a hopeful sign that Congress can work across party lines and find common ground," said Mike Matz, Pew's director of U.S. public lands. "Members have clearly heard from their constituents that they expect lawmakers to join together to get things done for the country. The largely bipartisan wilderness legislation was crafted with the help and support of local communities, and it reflects democracy at its best."

The American Petroleum Institute also lauded the House vote, citing a bipartisan provision in the bill to extend and expand a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas permit streamlining program.

"A more efficient permitting process is crucial to America's all-of-the-above energy strategy," said API's Director of Upstream and Industry Operations Erik Milito. "This legislation will help to address well-documented regulatory delays that have held up energy production on federal lands and slowed the growth of jobs."

 

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PUBLIC LANDS: Major wilderness, development package hits home stretch

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E: Monday, December 8, 2014

A sweeping package of parks, wilderness, drilling and lands bills is one Senate vote away from President Obama's desk, a remarkable bipartisan finale for what's been a deeply divided Congress.

The lands package crafted by staff on the energy and natural resources panels in both chambers is attached to the $585 billion National Defense Authorization Act, a "must pass" bill that cleared the House last week 300-119 and is expected to sail through the Senate by week's end.

The Senate could pass the package swiftly by unanimous consent, but conservatives including Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have signaled plans to delay the measure in hopes of striking wilderness and parks bills they say have no business riding on NDAA.

While both chambers are scheduled to adjourn Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last week warned members that it could be a "long, long week, spilling into next week."

The upper chamber still needs to pass the defense bill, a tax extenders package and an appropriations measure before heading home for the holidays, Reid said.

While the public lands package in NDAA faces some detractors, Capitol Hill insiders say its passage is a matter of when, not if.

"It's not a done deal until the president sits down and signs it," said Mike Matz, director of U.S. public lands for the Pew Charitable Trusts, which backs the lands deal. "It looks relatively promising."

The lands package would designate nearly 250,000 acres of wilderness in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington and Montana; withdraw hundreds of thousands of acres from mineral development; establish or expand more than a dozen national parks; and protect about 140 miles of rivers.

It would also streamline drilling and grazing permits, allow development of the third-largest copper ore body in the world, and privatize tens of thousands of acres of federal lands for development, including mining and logging.

The package's size and scope is noteworthy in a Congress that so far has passed only one wilderness bill -- Sen. Carl Levin's S. 23 to protect Michigan's Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore -- in addition to other minor lands legislation.

Its success is in large part due to support from House Republicans -- who sponsored or backed key conservation and energy measures -- as well as the passage of time.

Package provisions to expand Washington's Alpine Lakes Wilderness and block future oil and gas drilling on more than 400,000 acres west of Montana's Glacier National Park are bipartisan and largely noncontroversial but had languished for years, creating pent-up demand.

"Members have clearly heard from their constituents that they expect lawmakers to join together to get things done for the country," Matz said.

The lands package has been roundly embraced by Pew, Trout Unlimited, the Wilderness Society, the National Wildlife Federation and the National Parks Conservation Association.

But the Sierra Club and prominent environmentalists oppose it, saying too much was sacrificed in the deal to gain too little. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Defenders of Wildlife have also raised serious objections over grazing language that they say will erode the National Environmental Policy Act.

Other activists complained that conservation bills in the package had to be watered down in order to win Republican support.

For example, Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) demanded the release of 14,000 acres of wilderness study areas and a new assessment of oil and gas potential in the Bridge Coulee and Musselshell Breaks WSAs before lending his support to the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, S. 364, a bill to protect roughly 67,000 acres of wilderness in northern Montana.

"Don't be fooled by the politicians, industry spokespeople or the people who work for multimillion-dollar conservation organizations," said Matthew Koehler, an environmental activist in Montana who is opposed to the package. "Look at the details and decide for yourself if this is how to preserve and protect America's public lands legacy."

With Senate leaders unlikely to allow amendments to NDAA, opponents are signaling defeat.

"It looks like we don't have any more levers to pull to strike this," said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club's lands protection program. "It's kind of a done deal."

The "poison pills" in the package have been amended by sponsors to appease critics, with mixed success.

A bill by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to swap lands between the federal government and mining company Resolution Copper, owned by mining giant Rio Tinto PLC, to facilitate the development of a mine near Superior, Ariz., was amended from an earlier version to require an environmental review be performed before lands are swapped and to enhance consultation with tribes.

A bill by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to allow a Native Alaska-owned company to acquire 70,000 acres in the Tongass outside the areas it was promised in a 1971 settlement was amended several times over the past few years in order to facilitate the Obama administration's transition to young-growth logging, gaining the support of the Forest Service and a prominent conservation group in southeast Alaska.

But significant opposition remains to both of those bills.

Green groups have an unlikely ally -- Coburn -- who hopes to derail the lands package, which he sees as pork.

"Throughout my time in Congress, I have repeatedly objected to measures that seek to expand the responsibilities of the Department of Interior in the absence of dedicating the resources needed to maintain the vast commitments Congress has already made," Coburn said in a Nov. 19 letter to Senate leaders, pledging to use "all procedural options" to slow the bill's passage.

Coburn's Republican colleagues will likely try to talk him back from that threat given the chamber's heavy workload, but it's unclear what will happen. An email to Coburn's office was not returned Friday.

Coburn, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Republican allies in the House banded together in the lame duck in 2010 to defeat a package of 110 public lands, water and wildlife bills introduced by Reid, some of whose provisions now appear in NDAA.

But there are key differences with today's package. For one, it's attached to a defense package that senators say must pass in a constrained time frame. In addition, most of the package's major conservation components are sponsored or backed by Republicans in those states.

It also includes major pet projects from prominent Republicans, including Murkowski and McCain, as well as from Reid.

 

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PUBLIC LANDS: Senate set to advance NDAA with wilderness, development package

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E: Thursday, December 11, 2014

The Senate this morning is expected to cast a procedural vote to advance a major package of public lands bills in the National Defense Authorization Act.

The chamber will hold a cloture vote on the motion to concur with the House-passed legislation, which requires 60 votes. The $585 billion NDAA and its rider full of parks, wilderness, lands and energy bills are expected to easily advance.

A final vote on passage would occur up to 30 hours later.

Barring a major surprise, the bill will be the largest lands package to reach President Obama's desk since his first quarter in office in 2009.

That's when he signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, which created more than 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states and established three new national park units, a new national monument, three new national conservation areas and more than 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers.

This NDAA lands package is more modest in size and arguably contains more concessions to Republicans, namely provisions to convey tens of thousands of acres of public lands for mining and logging and to expedite grazing permits.

It would also designate nearly 250,000 acres of wilderness in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington state and Montana; withdraw hundreds of thousands of acres from mineral development; establish or expand more than a dozen national park units; and protect about 140 miles of rivers.

Still, the package's size and scope are noteworthy in a Congress that so far has passed only one wilderness bill -- Sen. Carl Levin's S. 23, to protect Michigan's Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore -- in addition to other minor lands legislation.

While backed by a handful of prominent conservation groups, the package has raised dissent from liberal environmentalists and tea party Republicans.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) took to the Senate floor yesterday to denounce the lands package as an affront to U.S. troops because it was attached to a defense bill. Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have also blasted the lands package as federal overreach.

"Only a privileged few members of Congress had a hand in drafting this bill, which was cobbled together with numerous extraneous provisions behind closed doors," Lee said. "The Senate majority leader has refused to allow an open and transparent debate, shutting down our ability to offer amendments on the Senate floor."

But even opponents were conceding yesterday that NDAA will receive well over 60 votes, given that it is considered a must-pass defense package. NDAA has passed annually for more than half a century.

Plus, many senators have their own bills in the lands package that their constituents have fought for years to pass.

NDAA passed the House 300-119 last week.

 

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PUBLIC LANDS: Senate easily advances NDAA with wilderness, parks package

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Thursday, December 11, 2014

The Senate this morning voted 85-14 to advance a major package of parks, wilderness and land development bills as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, setting up a final vote on the $585 billion measure no later than tomorrow.
The procedural vote ended debate on the motion to concur in the House-passed bill.
The cloture vote was necessary because Republican senators including Tom Coburn of Oklahoma had objected to including parks and wilderness bills in a defense bill. The lands package was assembled by the Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources and the House Natural Resources panels.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this morning said the bundle of conservation and development bills "is good for America."
"Are there provisions in this package that I don't like? Of course. Are there things in these bills that Republicans don't like? You bet," Reid said. "This legislation promotes jobs, protects the environment, helps our armed forces and gives Americans a chance to enjoy the magnificent landscapes this country has to offer."
The 14 "no" votes included 10 Republicans, including Coburn, Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
The Senate could vote to pass the package sooner than tomorrow afternoon, but it would require the consent of all senators.
If passed, as expected, it would be the largest package of public lands bills to cross the president's desk since March 2009.
NDAA would designate nearly 250,000 acres of wilderness in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington state and Montana; withdraw hundreds of thousands of acres from mineral development; establish or expand more than a dozen national park units; and protect about 140 miles of rivers.