Sept. 23 – AUSTIN – Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, Md., has enlisted the state of Texas to file a lawsuit Monday against the Biden-Harris administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) over its classification of the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard (DSL) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Today’s lawsuit follows comments Commissioner Buckingham made to the USFWS more than a year ago, which pointed out inconsistencies in the DSL’s endangered classification and how moving forward with that classification “could have a crippling impact on the oil and gas industry,” resulting in job losses in the state and reduced revenues for the Permanent School Fund (PSF) and Permanent University Fund (PUF).
“The Biden-Harris Administration will do everything in its power to cripple Texas’ robust oil and gas industry. As the steward of more than 13 million acres of energy-rich lands, I will do everything in my power to protect our state’s energy independence and the education of our schoolchildren,” said Commissioner Buckingham. “This unwarranted, understudied classification of the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard poses a direct threat to surface activities that are absolutely essential to oil and gas production in West Texas, and I will not allow this to happen on my watch.”
Inconsistencies with the DSL’s listing as endangered include:
1. USFWS has failed to provide evidence that there has been a change in oil and gas production in the Permian Basin sufficient to reverse the 2012 finding that the DSL does not meet the statutory definition of an endangered species under the ESA.
2. USFWS deliberately ignores Texas’ voluntary conservation efforts to protect the DSL in its analysis. According to its own statement, USFWS does not consider the impact of conservation efforts unless they are mandatory, permanent, and comprehensive.
3. USFWS and the Biden administration have ignored DSL population trends, which show their numbers are increasing.
The proposed habitat of the DSL is not well or clearly defined by the USFWS. It appears to be primarily in the Permian Basin of far west Texas, the beating heart of the Texas and national oil and gas industry. It is one of the primary sources of revenue for education in Texas, through the PSF and PUF.
