Newly minted federal rules designed to protect greater sage grouse habitat by limiting drilling, mining and renewable energy projects on nearly 1,200 square miles of public land in Colorado could be restored under a second Donald Trump administration.

On November 8, the US Bureau of Land Management, which administers land owned by the federal government, completed updates to protect the habitat of the greater sage grouse on approximately 65 million hectares of land managed by the authority. The bird’s population has cratered with 80 percent since 1966, although it is not yet listed as threatened.

The greater sage grouse is found in the wide expanses of bushy sagebrush in the northwest corner of Colorado, a habitat threatened by wildfires, drought and development. In the spring, hundreds of male birds gather in open patches called “leks” for elaborate mating parades.

“Greater sage grouse love the same land we have our (oil and gas),” said Kathleen Griffin, trout conservation program manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

The Bureau of Land Management balances competing uses for millions of acres through resource management plans that outline how it will protect wildlife like the greater sage grouse and allow other activities, including drilling, mining and recreation. Finding that balance has proven difficult: both fossil fuel advocates and the renewable energy industry opposed the final rules protecting grouse, saying they were too restrictive for companies.

“This administration has decided to ban activity in habitat areas even when the strict regulations are enforced and then claims that companies are avoiding them anyway,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a fossil fuel industry group, wrote in a statement to CPR News. “DOI’s dishonest communications are a way to justify its actions, not a reflection of reality.”

“The updated plan does not reflect this balance and unnecessarily restricts the development of wind, solar, battery storage and transmission, undermining the ability to deploy much-needed clean energy infrastructure,” Phil Sgro, spokesman for the American Clean Power Association, a renewable energy group. the energy industry group, wrote in an email to CPR News.

The rules change dozens of separate resource management plans in the West to protect the bird’s breeding grounds from drilling, mining and renewable projects, such as massive wind and solar farms, with a few exceptions.

The changes that apply to Colorado’s public lands prohibit surface drilling or renewable projects, and the power lines and roads that come with them, within a certain distance of the bird’s breeding grounds and other critical territories. The strongest restrictions apply to about 4 million acres across the West, including 5,000 acres in Colorado, which will be completely closed to large wind and solar projects and surface drilling. Griffin said the goal is to keep the bird’s territory intact.

“Ryros are a species that don’t like small stamp parts of the habitat,” Griffin said. “They like these wide open areas. They don’t like power lines, they don’t like roads.”

The second Trump administration appears eager to unravel the safeguards, according to scientists, environmental groups and public statements by the president-elect and his team.

Review, rewrite, unwind

On Thursday, President-elect Trump tapped North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to lead the Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management. Burgum, the top official in a major oil and gas state, has been one vocal supporter of the fossil fuel industry and a proponent of opening more federal lands to drilling and relaxing environmental regulations, which he says has damaged the country.

In 2017, the Trump administration rolled back sage grouse protections enacted under the Obama administration, but a federal judge blocked the reversal.

The incoming Republican-led Congress could also use Congressional Review Act to reverse agency actions that happened in the waning days of a previous administration. But that scenario seems unlikely because of how the law works, according to Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation organization.

“So, if Congress were to try to use the CRA to strike the rip (plan), Congress is basically saying we’re going to take it upon ourselves to rewrite 70 individual resource plans,” Weiss said. “And that’s crazy.”

Project 2025, a conservative policy roadmap written in part by former Trump administration officials, including William Perry Pendley, former acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, also suggests to remove management of greater sage grouse from the federal government. President-elect Trump took a distance from Project 2025 during the campaign but has since then knocked at least two contributors to the project for his incoming administration.

David Zalbowski/AP

Michael Pappas, an environmental law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, said it could take years to wind down a major sage grouse protection because of the length of time environmental review takes.

“The sage grouse (environmental review) process has been going on for a while,” Pappas said. “Undoing it, or proposing different changes, would probably take a while. None of this costs a penny.”

Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, a conservation group, said the Biden administration did not do enough to permanently strengthen sage grouse protection.

“It is clear that the Biden administration has fumbled a major opportunity to bring protection of sagebrush habitat up to the standards of the best available science,” Molvar said.

Future energy development on Colorado’s public lands is uncertain

The Bureau of Land Management oversees 8.3 million acres of land and over 27 million acres of federal mineral property that can be leased for mining, drilling and other energy development, according to the agency — most of which is on the Western Slope. About 750,000 acres of that land is considered critical habitat for the greater sage grouse.

During the first Trump administration, the agency opened up millions more acres of public land for leasing for drilling or mining than during the Biden administration. Some environmental groups fear the same thing would happen again and undercut promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. President-elect Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to do so increase drilling on public land.

“President Trump declared open season on our public lands and waters,” said Michael Freeman, senior attorney at the environmental law firm Earthjustice. “President-elect Trump has made it clear he plans to take the same approach this time around.”

But just because land is offered for lease doesn’t mean it will be developed, because of how difficult it can be to extract the remaining oil or gas.

“The conventional thinking is that the best land for resource extraction has already been mined,” said Pappas, the CU-Boulder law professor. “And so it could be that the administration politically wants to say this is open to leasing, and there just aren’t that many takers.”

In April, the Biden administration finalized two major public lands rules that prioritized conservation and increased fees for drilling. A rule elevated conservation as a priority for how the authority manages its land, on par with other uses such as mining or drilling. Another rule increased fees for oil and gas permits and increased the amount of money companies must keep in reserve in case they orphan or abandon their wells.

Both of these rules are likely at risk, according to Freeman, but unraveling them fully would likely take years.

“President Trump can’t just roll them back with the wave of a pen,” Freeman said. “He’s going to have to follow the law and go through the normal rulemaking and (environmental review) processes if he wants to do that.”

Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, expects to see other recent public lands declarations in Colorado weakened or even eliminated.

2022, President Biden established Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in Eagle County. Presidents can unilaterally create and eliminate national monuments, which are considered public land. In April, the federal government withdrew more than 200,000 acres of public land from drilling or mining for 20 years in central Colorado, in an area known as the Thompson Divide.

“Whether it’s trying to revoke the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument, whether it’s trying to erase the protections for the Thompson Divide … I imagine that all of those measures can or will be attacked in one way or another,” said Weiss.