The Biden administration is taking action to protect the sage grouse

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 wise grouse, a ground-nesting bird known for the males’ flamboyant mating dance, is at the center of a decade-long battle between the industry and conservationists. The new plan, issued by the Bureau of Land Management, is expected to spark a new round of debate and legal challenges.

The agency manages the majority of the nation’s sage-grouse habitat, nearly 70 million acres across 11 western states. That amounts to almost half of the bird’s habitat.

In recent decades, the population of sage grouse has declined dramatically due to habitat loss, which has been exacerbated by forest fires fueled by climate change.

Throughout their range, greater grouse populations have declined by about 80 percent since 1965, and by almost 40 percent since 2002, according to research. a report from the US Geological Survey.

The proposal, which offers six alternatives, is an attempt to keep the sage grouse off the endangered species list. That would lead to 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,” Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement.

She noted that states and the federal government had worked together to conserve the bird, and said the new plan built on that work.

The six alternatives are now open for public comment. Each measure would entail a number of restrictions on commercial activities, affecting different amounts of land. The agency’s preference is number 5 on the list, a compromise between more restrictive and more permissive proposals from previous administrations.

For example, compared to the status quo, it would place an additional 2.5 million acres under the most restrictive sage-grouse protection, bringing the total to nearly 35 million acres, agency officials said. It would also move renewable energy away from sensitive sage-grouse habitat and streamline management of the birds across state lines.

The immediate response from conservation groups was mixed.

“This plan represents the last, best hope to save the sage grouse and prevent it from being listed under the Endangered Species Act,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental group, in a statement.

Other conservation groups sounded the alarm.

“The draft proposal simply isn’t enough for the sage grouse,” said Vera Smith, senior federal land policy analyst at Defenders of Wildlife. “The draft proposal still allows oil and gas drilling, mining and other activities – some of the biggest threats to the bird’s habitat.”

Oil industry executives, concerned about the plan, took a cautious approach. Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, an association of independent oil and gas companies, said she was concerned the Biden administration was taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach to states with different needs.

But Ms Sgamma said in a statement: “It is positive that the preferred alternative appears to be a mix between the other approaches and previous plans.” She added that this indicated the Bureau of Land Management is “trying to find a workable balance.”

The federal battle for the greater sage-grouse began when the Obama administration issued a land-use plan to protect 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 blocked progress on the Trump plan in 2019, so the agency never implemented any of the proposed management plans.

According to the agency, the birds rely on sagebrush to meet their food and reproductive needs, and a local population could need as much as 40 square kilometers of intact landscape to stay healthy. Other western species also depend on healthy sagebrush, including mule deer, pronghorn and pygmy rabbits.