The left’s war on fossil fuels knows no boundaries. Every line of attack will be pursued. The latest salvo came with the January listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened or endangered species by the Biden administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS). The listing covers the entirety of the bird’s habitat—which includes the southwest quarter of Kansas as well as the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma.
Recently I, along with the attorneys general of Texas and Oklahoma, filed a lawsuit in federal district court to stop the listing. We maintain that the Biden administration failed to meet the statutory criteria for listing the species. As a legal matter, we are confident that the Biden administration’s position will be found wanting.
The reason that the Biden administration moved forward with the listing has little to do with the prairie chicken, itself. Rather, it has everything to do with the war on fossil fuels. On top of that, it offered the Biden administration an opportunity to attack cattle ranching as well—the latest disfavored industry of the woke left.
The listing is a direct attack on the economy of Kansas, which is home to over 70 percent of the lesser prairie chicken population. It will make it virtually impossible to drill any new oil wells. And it forces ranchers to file annual grazing management plans with a federally-designated agency.
In other words, they will have to ask Uncle Sam for permission to use their own land. They will be unable to move their cattle to a different pasture not stipulated in the plan if conditions change, without first asking "Mother May I." It’s a huge infringement on the personal property rights of Kansas landowners.
This isn’t the first time the federal government has attempted to use the prairie chicken as a means to push its climate change agenda. When the Obama administration tried to list the prairie chicken as a threatened species in 2012, oil and gas industry workers were fined up to $45,000 if they disturbed a single acre of lesser prairie chicken habitat. Ranchers could be fined up to $25,000. Fortunately, that listing was defeated in court.
I’m suing President Joe Biden’s administration, because I want to protect Kansans, similar to the way Utah officials protected their citizens from federal government overreach back in 2014. That year, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) attempted to designate the sage grouse as an endangered species. BLM attempted to force the sage grouse listing despite the fact that only 6 percent of the birds’ population was under threat from development. The designation failed, thanks to the efforts of Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and other Utah residents.
Biden’s efforts on behalf of the lesser prairie chicken should fail too. Biden’s USFWS did not adequately consider pre-existing measures by Kansas communities to protect prairie chickens.
The closely-related "greater prairie chicken" population, for example, is thriving despite being legally hunted in my state.
Management by local wildlife officials has allowed species numbers to increase, using the knowledge of Kansas wildlife biologists, who actually have extensive experience with the birds, unlike the USFWS. Federal regulators would be wise to leave decision-making over the fate of rare wildlife up to the people who know them best.
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More importantly, Biden’s USFWS have failed to acknowledge that there is one factor that determines prairie chicken populations more than any other—rainfall.
For centuries, prairie chicken numbers have declined whenever there is a drought; but the population numbers always rebound once the rain returns. This happened after the drought between 2009 and 2012, and it’s certain to happen again once our current drought ends. Despite this historical evidence, Biden’s USFWS claims that the recent drop in prairie chicken numbers is principally due to human activity.
But those facts are persuasive to the Biden administration, which is more concerned about weaponizing their USFWS against the oil and beef industry in the American midwest.
Federal bureaucrats sitting in their Washington, D.C. offices know little about the facts on the ground, no matter how well-intentioned their efforts may seem on the surface.
The act of listing the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened or endangered species is no less than an attack on the oil industry and hard-working Kansas ranchers. Fortunately, we can take this battle to the courts, where the law of the land will hopefully prevail.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM KANSAS ATTORNEY GEN. KRIS KOBACH
