Legislation filed in Congress will remove the lesser prairie chicken and the dunes sagebrush lizard from the Endangered Species list freeing up energy and agricultural producers in multiple states.
Lesser Prairie Chicken: Despite farmers, ranchers, private landowners, and energy producers voluntarily implementing conservation agreements for the past 10 years to prevent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) from listing the lesser prairie-chicken (LPC), they listed it anyway during the Biden administration.
U.S. Representative Tracey Mann (KS-01) and 14 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 587 in January 2025, to remove the LPC from the threatened and endangered species list and importantly, to prohibit future efforts to relist the LPC.
Numbers for the LPC have increased by over 15,000 in the last 10 years thanks to local and private management efforts. To get around this, the Biden Administration split the LPC population in two and claimed the newly created Distinct Population Segments (DPS) needed protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). They finalized a rule listing the Northern DPS as threatened, and the Southern DPS as endangered.
The courts have since thrown out the Northern DPS listing, and the case filed against the Southern listing looks very promising for landowners.
This is just one reason why American Stewards is advocating that the DPS language in the ESA be stricken. We have recommended this be added to the ESA Amendment Act of 2025, along with seven other amendments.
“Farmers, ranchers, and others in Kansas and the region have been instrumental in the recovery of the species to this point while the climate activists demanding this rule have no understanding of the threat it poses to Kansas’s economy, especially the energy and ag industries”, stated Mann.
This isn’t the first time Rep. Mann has attempted to remove the LPC from the ESA list.
In February 2023, Rep. Mann led a bicameral Congressional Review Act, S.J. Res. 9, to strike down the LPC’s listing on the threatened species list. The resolution passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2023, only to have Biden veto it.
Co-sponsors of H.R. 587 include:
Reps. Derek Schmidt (KS-02), Ron Estes (KS-04), Stephanie Bice (OK-05), Jodey Arrington (TX-19), Dan Newhouse (WA-04), Frank Lucas (OK-03), Josh Brecheen (OK-02), Don Bacon (NE-02), Gary Palmer (AL-06), Scott Perry (PA-10), Wesley Hunt (TX-38), Tom McClintock (CA-05), Brian Babin (TX-36), and Keith Self (TX-03).
Dunes Sagebrush Lizard: For years, West Texas landowners and energy producers have fought the listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard (DSL) by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) as a threatened species.
The listing of the DSL, as well as the LPC, is, and always has been, an effort by the federal agencies and environmentalists to destroy energy and agriculture producers in the Permian Basin in West Texas. The oil-rich Permian Basin produces 20 percent of our nation’s oil and gas.
Earlier this month, U.S. Representative August Pfluger (R-TX-11) filed H.R. 2573, called the “Limiting Incredulous Zealots Against Restricting Drilling (LIZARD) Act” to remove the DSL from the threatened and endangered species list under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Pfluger, along with U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann (KS-01) also sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum urging him to reverse the listing of the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard and the Lesser Prairie Chicken from the threatened and endangered species list “to recognize the success of local conservation efforts and restore regulatory certainty for rural communities,” Pfluger stated.
In the letter to Sec. Burgum, the two members state: “The Trump Administration can correct these misguided policies by directing FWS to delist both the Lesser Prairie Chicken and the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard. Doing so will restore balance to our conservation efforts—allowing local stakeholders to continue their successful work while safeguarding American energy production, protecting jobs, and supporting rural economies,”
The Biden administration continuously ignored the actions of local citizen’s efforts and facts on the ground.
“Former President Biden spent four years fulfilling his promise to kill the fossil fuel industry one horrible policy at a time – including listing the dunes sagebrush lizard under the Endangered Species Act, a direct attack on our hardworking men and women in the energy sector,” said Rep. Pfluger.
This bill is part of Trump’s “drill baby drill” effort to remove barriers and regulations from American producers and open oil and gas production making America the world’s leading producer of fossil fuels.
