Energy development will likely land sage grouse on the Endangered Species list
Biologists estimate there were once 16 million greater-sage grouse across the West. Now there are fewer than 500,000.
No one wants a species to wink out on their watch. And in the West, no one particularly wants a species to get in bad enough trouble that it is listed on the Endangered Species Act. The feds get involved. Making a living off the land becomes more difficult.
That’s why hundreds of people from across the West worked together for years to come up with collaborative conservation plans to keep the bird from the brink and off the list.
Folks were rightly proud the day in 2016 that governors from the West came together for a ceremony to ink the deal with then-Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell.
So it was perplexing why the Department of Interior under Secretary Ryan Zinke ran headlong so quickly into trying to upend those plans.
The agency said it would no longer prioritize drilling outside of sage grouse habitat — one of the core tenets of the plans. After all, the most practical way to have both responsible drilling and sage grouse conservation is to drill where the bird isn’t. But that did not fit In with the administration’s energy dominance agenda (their words, not mine).
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/407911-energy-development-will-likely-land-one-bird-on-the-endangered
