B5
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2019
David Zalubowski/AP Photo
Male greater sage grouse perform mating rituals for a female grouse on a lake outside Walden, Colorado.
Judge blocks Trump from
easing energy rules in the West
By MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. — A U.S. judge
temporarily blocked the Trump adminis-
tration from easing rules on mining, drill-
ing and grazing across millions of acres
in seven Western states, saying such
activities left unchecked were likely to
harm a struggling bird species.
The ground-dwelling greater sage
grouse is at the center of a bitter con-
fl ict between the administration and con-
servationists involving how much of the
West’s expansive public lands should be
opened to development.
The temporary restraining order
issued Wednesday by a judge in Boise,
Idaho, means the administration for now
must fall back to more stringent rules
adopted under former President Barack
Obama.
Sage grouse have been in decline for
decades due to habitat loss and other fac-
tors, and their numbers dropped sharply
again this year across much of an 11-state
range.
The Trump land-use plans fi nalized in
March had removed the most protective
sage grouse habitat designations. Admin-
istration offi cials also dropped require-
ments to prioritize leasing for oil and gas
outside sage grouse habitat and allowed
more waivers for drilling.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill
did not say in his order when he will
make a fi nal decision in the case.
The Trump rule changes affect public
land in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah,
Nevada, California and Oregon. Sage
grouse territory in Montana, Washington
and the Dakotas was not impacted.
U.S. Interior Department spokesman
Nick Goodwin noted that the changes
had followed coordination with offi cials
in the affected states, including some
with Democratic governors.
“The previous plans from 2015
ignored the individual needs of states,”
Goodwin said. “The common-sense
amendments made by the department are
legally sound and struck the appropriate
balance in effectively managing these
important public lands.”
Goodwin declined to say if the
administration plans to appeal the ruling
Wednesday.
Michael Saul, an attorney for one of
the environmental groups involved in the
case, said the ruling blocked a “despica-
ble and illegal plan” to open every acre
of federally managed grouse habitat to
drilling.
“This ruling gives the sage grouse a
better shot at avoiding extinction,” Saul
said in a statement.
The case before Winmill dates to
2016, when environmental groups sued
the Obama administration over rules that
they described as insuffi cient to protect
grouse from heading toward extinction.
The groups added to their origi-
nal lawsuit when the rules were further
weakened as part of the Trump admin-
istration’s campaign to increase U.S.
energy production.
Kathleen Sgamma with the Western
Energy Alliance, an oil industry lobby-
ing group, said Winmill’s ruling was not
a surprise because the judge is favored
by environmental groups for his his
pro-conservation rulings.
She predicted the effect on the ground
would be limited because under a prior
court order the Trump administra-
tion already was following Obama-era
rules for the issuing of energy leases to
companies.
Sgamma said the environmental
groups involved in the case “will never
be satisfi ed until all oil and natural gas
leasing is stopped.”
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