The Biden administration on Thursday proposed plans to save the greater sage grouse, a move that could tighten restrictions on drilling, mining and other commercial activities on public lands in the West.
The sage grouse, a ground-nesting bird that is known for the males’ flamboyant mating dance, has been at the center of a decade-long battle between industry and conservationists. The new plan, issued by the Bureau of Land Management, is expected to set off a new round of debate and legal challenges.
The bureau controls the country’s largest single share of sage grouse habitat, nearly 70 million acres across 11 Western states. That amounts to almost half of the bird’s habitat.
Over the past decades, the sage grouse population has declined precipitously because of habitat loss exacerbated by wildfires fueled by climate change.
Across their entire range, greater sage grouse populations have declined about 80 percent since 1965, and nearly 40 percent since 2002, according to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The proposal, which offers six alternatives, is an effort to keep the sage grouse off the endangered species list. That would trigger much greater restrictions on activities within the bird’s range, while balancing the use of public lands for energy development, mining and grazing.
“The majesty of the West and its way of life are at stake,” Tracy Stone-Manning, the director of the Bureau of Land Management, said in a statement.
She noted that states and the federal government had worked together on conservation efforts for the bird, and said the new plan built on that work.
The six alternatives will now be open for public comment. Each would bring some restrictions on commercial activities, with varying amounts of land affected. The agency’s preference is No. 5 on the list, a compromise between more restrictive and permissive propositions from previous administrations.
Compared with the status quo, for example, it would place an additional 2.5 million acres under the most restrictive sage grouse protections, bringing that total to almost 35 million acres, agency officials said. It would also ensure that renewable energy was sited away from sensitive sage grouse habitat and streamline management of the birds across state borders.
Immediate reaction from conservation groups was mixed.
“This plan represents the last, best hope to save the sage grouse and avoid a listing under the Endangered Species Act,” Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental group, said in a statement.
Other conservation groups sounded the alarm.
“The draft proposal just doesn’t cut it for the sage grouse,” said Vera Smith, senior federal lands policy analyst with Defenders of Wildlife. “The draft proposal still allows for oil and gas drilling, mining, and other activities — some of the biggest threats to the bird’s habitat.”
Oil industry executives, who have been anxious about the plan, took a cautious approach. Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, an association of independent oil and gas companies, said she worried that the Biden administration was taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach to states with different needs.
But, Ms. Sgamma said in a statement, “It’s positive that the preferred alternative seems to be a blend between the other approaches and prior plans.” She added that this indicated that the Bureau of Land Management “is trying to find a workable balance.”
The federal battle over the greater sage grouse began when the Obama administration issued a land-use plan to shield the bird’s habitat from mining and energy development. That plan was considered strong enough to keep the sage grouse off the endangered species list.
But it was sharply criticized by the oil and gas industry, and, in 2017, the Trump administration issued a new plan that weakened protections and made it easier for states to approve drilling, pipelines and other activities in sage grouse breeding areas.
A federal court in 2019 blocked the Trump plan from moving forward, and the bureau consequently never put in place any of the proposed management plans.
According to the bureau, the birds rely on sagebrush to meet their food and reproduction needs, and a local population could need as much as 40 square miles of intact landscape to stay healthy. Other Western species also rely on healthy sagebrush, including mule deer, pronghorn and pygmy rabbits.
