Trump administration heeds oil and gas industry calls to remove protections for imperiled beetle

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

The Energy 202: Trump administration heeds oil and gas industry calls to remove protections for imperiled beetle

By Dino Grandoni
May 6 at 8:25 AM

The Trump administration said it plans to weaken protections for a beetle facing a threat of extinction from climate change, a move welcomed by oil and natural gas drillers lobbying for the change.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week a proposal to change the status of the American burying beetle from “endangered” to merely “threatened,” which would make it easier for oil and gas producers who must work around the insect when drilling and laying pipeline.

With that change in status, which has yet to be finalized, energy producers and other businesses in oil-rich Oklahoma would no longer need to seek out federal permits to operate in the insect’s habitat.

Ranchers there and in other states to the north, including Nebraska and South Dakota, would also be exempt from what many of them see as those cumbersome procedures.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/05/06/the-energy-202-trump-administration-heeds-oil-and-gas-industry-calls-to-remove-protections-for-beetle/5ccf64e9a7a0a46cfe152c3f/

[democratisphere]

1. Hope the rest of US don't become extinct before we get drumpf out of office.

[riversedge]

2. An American burying beetle. (Lindsay Vivian/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

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An American burying beetle. (Lindsay Vivian/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

[dchill]

3. I'd like to remove protections for imperiled presidents.