Sage

The Trump administration has withdrawn nearly 150,000 acres in northwestern Colorado from a December oil and natural gas lease sale, after top Colorado officials expressed concerns it could impact greater sage grouse habitat.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is seeking public comment about a proposal to reduce restrictions on oil and natural gas leasing in several western states with greater sage grouse habitat.

The House Committee on Natural Resources is to hear from western state officials on Wednesday in an oversight hearing regarding management solutions for the greater sage grouse.

Reassessing the nation’s greater sage grouse protections is a positive first step that needs further action, according to some western governors and oil and gas stakeholders who reacted Friday to thereview of conservation plans by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday ordered a review of the federal Greater Sage Grouse Conservation Plans to see if they are in any way restricting energy production on public lands.

Environmentalists in California and livestock ranchers throughout the West issued new documents this month on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and developments on the appropriate role in protecting species such as the greater sage grouse.

Researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno published a paper on Wednesday that may rekindle concern about the ability to allow oil/natural gas development throughout the West and still protect Sage Grouse habitat.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Thursday issued instructions for conserving the greater sage grouse and its habitat in seven different land-use situations, oil and natural gas development being one.

Denver-based Western Energy Alliance (WEA) and the North Dakota Petroleum Council (NDPC) on Thursday filed a lawsuit challenging federal land-use plan amendments to greater sage grouse protections put in place last fall (see Daily GPI,Sept. 22, 2015).