Biden-era lizard threat to Permian Basin nixed under Trump

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(The Center Square) – Another Biden administration attempt to halt oil and gas development in Texas has failed, this time U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Endangered Species Act designation of the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard. 

The USFWS listed the lizard as endangered in May 2024 despite Texas and New Mexico landowners and the oil and gas industry implementing more than a decade of conservation practices to protect it and its habitat. The DSL only lives in the Permian Basin, the greatest oil-producing region in the country.

The USFWS made the designation after it acknowledged that oil and natural gas industry practices preserved the species and after the agency first approved a Texas Conservation Plan agreement in 2012, The Center Square reported. 

In September 2024, Texas sued the Biden administration, arguing the designation was based on “flawed assumptions about oil and gas development and unfounded speculation about climate concerns,” as well as violated federal laws, The Center Square reported. 

Fast forward to the Trump administration and the USFWS has now revoked the lizard’s ESA designation in a settlement reached with the state. A federal judge in Midland still needs to approve the settlement agreement. 

In a court filing tied to the settlement, the USFWS acknowledged the 2024 listing relied on a “serious and fundamental” error and didn’t properly account for conservation and habitat restoration efforts that have been undertaken for more than a decade in far west Texas and southeast New Mexico. The error "led to an incomplete and potentially inaccurate assessment of the potential ​and ongoing conservation efforts in New Mexico and Texas," the Department of Justice said, Reuters reported.

The settlement and USFWS decision reflect a policy shift that has swung back and forth for decades between Republican and Democratic administrations. 

“For years, Texans watched the Obama and Biden administrations weaponize the Endangered Species Act against the people who power this country,” Railroad Commission of Texas Commissioner Wayne Christian said in a statement. The RRC regulates the oil and natural gas industry and is one of the oldest regulatory agencies in the state. “The goal was never about protecting wildlife. It was about using federal bureaucracy as a tool to restrict oil and gas production and undermine American energy independence.”

“As I said years ago, conservation works best when it’s led by the men and women who work these lands every day, not by Washington bureaucrats weaponizing the Endangered Species Act against American energy,” he added. “Texas oil and gas producers have shown that responsible development and conservation can coexist, including in the Permian Basin, where voluntary agreements are already in place.”

The lizard’s ESA designation reversal is the latest to impact Texas. 

In 2023, the Biden administration’s USFWS listed two population segments of the lesser prairie-chicken as endangered. Its population has dwindled due to losing 90% of its habitat, the USFWS says. It lives within a five-state range, including in Texas.

The USFSW was sued and lost in court. The court ordered it to delist the prairie-chicken, which it did in February 2026. 

The Biden administration’s USFWS also sought to expand the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge from more than 6,400 acres to nearly 700,000 acres, attempting to use eminent domain to take private land in far west Texas and eastern New Mexico in a signed June 2023 large land acquisition program agreement.

The argument was that the federal government taking up to 700,000 acres of land was minimal “within a vast 7-million-acre landscape in Western Texas and Eastern New Mexico.” 

The Trump administration disagreed and halted the plan last July. “The withdrawal of the LPP will ensure America’s lands continue to support energy development, agriculture production and our local economies,” the Trump administration's USFWS said. The Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge is the oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas.

“Environmental stewardship and energy production are not mutually exclusive,” Christian said. The lizard, lesser prairie-chicken and Muleshoe decisions “demonstrates the Trump administration’s commitment to reversing years of federal overreach in which species listings were used to restrict land use, impede development and diminish domestic energy production. Under President Trump, species protections will no longer serve as a false pretext to block responsible development or penalize American energy producers,” he said. 

The Biden administration also used the USFWS to take extraordinary efforts to halt Texas border security efforts. In 2022, it sought to designate nearly 700 acres in Starr and Zapata counties as critical habitat for the prostrate milkweed, an endangered wildflower. By March 2023, designated critical habitat in “137 acres of federally owned and managed land on Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, and 523 acres of privately owned land and county roads and rights of way.” 

In 2023, it also proposed listing two species of freshwater mussels in three Texas border counties as endangered. This was as the Biden administration was suing Texas over its border security efforts. The mussels were never classified as endangered. Texas won its border lawsuits and continued to build its own border wall, concertina and marine barriers.