The Interior Department released its draft plan to roll back the 2015 Obama-era plan to protect the chicken-sized sage-grouse on Wednesday, with an eye toward oil and natural gas development on once off-limit lands.
Trump administration officials say the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed revisions to the 2015 sage-grouse plan would increase flexibility in the management of lands in the West where the birds roost and breed.
Conservation groups like the Audubon Society immediately condemned the Trump proposal as a serious threat to the birds.
“Protecting sagebrush habitat is the key to protecting the Greater Sage-Grouse and avoiding further fragmentation of an iconic landscape,” said Brian Rutledge, Audubon’s sagebrush habitat director.
“Any new plans that reduce conservation commitments not only put the sage-grouse at risk but also threaten local economies and a way of life,” he said.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental group, said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s new sage-grouse plan ignores 400,000 public comments that supported the Obama-era plan.
The Zinke proposal also “throws out protections on over 60 million acres” of land, while discarding a “conservation plan that was decades in the making and had the bipartisan support of governors in the region.”
Zinke tweeted out a photo Tuesday of a meeting he held with Idaho Republican Gov. Butch Otter to talk about the sage-grouse.
Otter had gone to court to gain more flexibility for his state to manage the sage-grouse through its own plan, rather than abide by the federal plan instituted under former President Barack Obama.
Zinke tweeted it is “always good to talk sage-grouse” with the governor.
Wednesday’s proposal would seem to jibe well with Otter’s previous requests that the government let the states institute their own management plans.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, welcomed Zinke’s plan.
“Wyoming has been the leader on sage-grouse conservation efforts for years,” Barrasso said. “I appreciate that the Department of the Interior has worked with Governor [Matt] Mead and other Wyoming local leaders in this process. I will review this draft environmental impact statement and will continue to work with the agency, so a solution can be reached that is best for the people of Wyoming and the sage-grouse.”
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Want to save the Sage Grouse? They start controling the Coyotes and quit listening to the Eco-Wackos