Trump administration sued over ‘gutting’ of greater sage-grouse protections
Hillel Aron
(CN) — Conservation groups sued the federal Bureau of Land Management on Monday over what they say amounts to a “gutting” of protections to the Greater sage-grouse on 71 million acres of public land across nine Western states, from California to North Dakota.
“The Trump administration’s destructive, illegal plans could nail the coffin shut on our country’s incredible dancing birds unless the courts intervene,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a written statement. “We’ve got to preserve these Western landscapes for future generations, and we do that by stopping Trump’s giveaways to corporate billionaires.”
In 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that the greater sage-grouse, the largest grouse in North America, warranted protection under the Endangered Species Act.
To avoid listing the bird, a move that would have restricted use of millions of acres, the Bureau of Land Management amended nearly 100 land-use plans in 2015 across sage-grouse habitat. The changes limited oil and gas drilling and mining, among other activities.
“Meanwhile, despite a decade of management under the 2015 Plans, the greater sage-grouse is still in decline. Populations have dropped nearly 80 percent since 1966, with over half of that loss occurring in the last two decades alone,” the conservation groups wrote in their federal complaint, filed in Montana. “The bird’s habitat is also still disappearing at an alarming rate: 1.3 million acres per year. And as a forewarning for the remaining range, North Dakota’s sage- grouse population now appears to be effectively extinct.”
The BLM sought to ease the restrictions in 2019 under the first Trump administration, lifting limits on drilling and mining, but courts blocked the changes. Plaintiffs now say the agency is “carrying forward many of the rollbacks from the 2019 Plans.”
“Gone are essential pillars of the 2015 Plans, such as prioritization of oil and gas leasing outside sage-grouse habitat, a mineral withdrawal and non-waivable development prohibitions for crucial habitat, and compensatory mitigation to offset any new habitat losses,” the plaintiffs write in their complaint. “These changes lack any scientific basis and will inexorably accelerate the sage-grouse’s downward spiral toward extinction.”
The groups — the Center for Biological Diversity, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Rocky Mountain Wild, the Sierra Club, the Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians — argue the new plans violate the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to engage in reasoned decision-making or adequately explain the scientific findings underlying them.
They also contend the plans violate the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by relying on a flawed environmental review.
“After a decade of tepid sage grouse protections, now the Bureau of Land Management is completely abandoning its responsibility to manage commercial activities in sage grouse habitats to allow the birds to survive,” said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist and executive director of Western Watersheds Project, in a written statement. “The limitations on livestock grazing, oil and gas development, and mining in the original plans are now being cast aside in a rush to accelerate industrial and commercial activities and destroy the wild places and wildlife that make the American West unique.”
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Land Management did not respond to an email requesting a comment.