Feds proceed with easing restrictions on drilling

B ILLINGS, MONT. » The Trump administration moved forward Thursday with plans to ease restrictions on oil and natural gas drilling, mining and other activities across millions of acres in the American West that were put in place to protect an imperiled bird species.

Land management documents released by the U.S. Interior Department show the administration intends to open more public lands to leasing and allow waivers for drilling to encroach into the habitat of greater sage grouse.

Critics warned that the changes could wipe out grouse colonies as drilling disrupts breeding grounds. Federal officials under President Barack Obama in 2015 had adopted a sweeping set of land use restrictions intended to stop the birds’ decline.

Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt said the agency was responding to requests by states to give them more flexibility in how public lands are managed. He said the goal to conserve sage grouse was unchanged.

“I completely believe that these plans are leaning forward on the conservation of sage grouse,” Bernhardt told The Associated Press. “Do they do it in exactly the same way, no? We made some change in the plans and got rid of some things that are simply not necessary.”

The changes drew a sharp backlash from conservation groups and wildlife advocates, who warned excessive use of drilling waivers could push sage grouse onto the list of threatened and endangered species.

“If you allow exception after exception, that might make sense for a particular project in a particular spot, but you add them all together and you have death by a thousand cuts,” said National Wildlife Association vice president Tracy Stone-Manning.

The ground-dwelling grouse ranges across about 270,000 square miles in parts of 11 western U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Its numbers plummeted in recent decades.

Under President Donald Trump, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has vowed to lift obstacles to drilling, and grouse protections have long been viewed by the energy industry as an obstacle to development.

The new plans remove the most protective habitat designations for about 13,000 square miles of public land. Those areas — considered essential to the species’ survival — were a centerpiece of the Obama policy. The Trump administration also wants to drop some requirements to prioritize leasing for oil and gas outside sage grouse habitat.

John Swartout, senior adviser to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, said the state is generally satisfied with the Colorado-specific provisions in the Bureau of Land Management’s final sage-grouse plans. He said changes from the 2015 plans provide more flexibility when development is proposed in the bird’s habitat.

“They’ve kept the standard high. You can’t have an impact on grouse,” Swartout said. “The bar is still extremely high, and it should be.”