Of the Rebellion of Law
Posted by Leslie Eastman
“The Wildlife Service failed to rely on the best scientific and commercial data available when making the designation as required by law and therefore made inaccurate and arbitrary assumptions about the species’ current and future status.”
If Legal Insurrection ever had a mascot, it might be the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard.
Thanks to longtime reader Danelle, we’ve been following the creature’s endangered species status since 2011, when the Obama administration was poised to drop it to protected status. It appears to be part of the Obama administration’s larger effort to choke the country’s oil production capabilities one at a time, as lizards like to make their homes in fossil fuel-rich lands.
For more than a year, the threat was at the head of the Texas petroleum industry before (in a rare display of sanity and reason) the US Fish and Wildlife Service denied the request.
This July, the Biden administration raised its demand for the list and targeted important oil-producing areas in the Permian Basin with this action.
Now, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently announced that his office is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Biden administration officials over the declaration.
In the lawsuit, Paxton cited successful volunteer efforts that have successfully protected this species in the area.
…Paxton said the defendants wrongly classified the lizard as endangered in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
“The Wildlife Service failed to rely on the best available scientific and commercial data when making the designation as required by law and therefore made inaccurate and arbitrary assumptions about the species’ current and future status,” Paxton said in a statement.
“Furthermore, the regulation classifying the sagebrush dunes as endangered ignores the voluntary conservation efforts already underway at the local and state levels. Because of this, the federal government’s actions will undermine important economic development in the Permian Basin, causing Texas industry and private landowners to uncertainty and ambiguity about what they can do on their own land,” Paxton said.
Paxton had notified the Biden Administration in late July that the listing violated the Endangered Species Act and that he would sue if it was not revoked. The lawsuit asks the court to find the agency acted arbitrarily and willfully violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the ESA.
Paxton also accused the Fish and Wildlife Service of being intentionally vague about what areas would be protected in this economically critical area.
The sagebrush dunes lizard, only 2.5 inches long, occupies about 4 percent of the 86,000-square-mile Permian Basin, which spans Texas and New Mexico, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. In Texas, the species has been identified in Andrews, Crane, Gaines, Ward, and Winkler counties.
The endangered list requires oil and gas companies to avoid areas where sagebrush dunes are present, but the Fish and Wildlife Service has not designated those areas as it continues to collect data. Depending on the severity of the offense, companies that violate this rule can be fined up to $50,000 and potential prison time.
Paxton’s office criticized the Fish and Wildlife Service for not identifying areas where the lizards live, leaving operators and landowners unsure how to use their land.
Any science that the bureaucrats in the Biden administration may have used is purely coincidental.
Frankly, I hypothesize that the sagebrush dunes lizard is in near danger of extinction as a species due to our planet from “global warming” due to man-made carbon dioxide from fossil fuel production.
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