At the request of the Trump administration, a federal judge in Texas removed endangered species protections from a small lizard whose habitat overlaps the largest oil‑producing region in the United States.
This marks the latest development in an ongoing dispute concerning the dunes sagebrush lizard, a light‑brown reptile native to parts of the oil‑rich Permian Basin in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas.
The Biden administration listed the lizard as endangered in 2024, citing serious threats from oil and gas development and climate change. Texas subsequently filed a lawsuit, and the Trump administration requested the judge to delist the species as part of a settlement with the state.
Judge David Counts of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas approved the settlement on Tuesday. Appointed by President Trump, he concluded that the Biden administration’s assessment of the lizard’s habitat was “potentially inaccurate.”
This is the second occasion in a year that Judge Counts permitted the Trump administration to remove an animal from the endangered species list following a lawsuit by industry or state actors. In a prior case, he approved the removal of protections for the lesser prairie chicken, a species whose habitat also conflicts with oil and gas operations.
The administration similarly sought to do so in a third case involving seven freshwater mussel species inhabiting rivers and creeks in Central Texas. Across all three cases, the Trump administration contended that the Biden‑era findings supporting species protection were erroneous or based on incomplete data.
Conservationists defended the original scientific findings and warned of a troubling pattern, noting that all three cases involve species located within or near the Permian Basin.
“Sound science is being sacrificed for politics,” said Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group that sought to intervene in the cases but was denied the opportunity.
Mr. Rylander noted that in 25 years of practicing conservation law he had never before witnessed an administration use the courts to hastily strip protections from a species. He explained that the government normally conducts a new scientific review and solicits public comment before modifying a decision that took years to finalize.
The review would now occur after the species has lost its protections. The settlement states that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “anticipates” issuing a new initial finding for the lizard within 24 months.
Representatives of the Interior Department, the parent agency of the Fish and Wildlife Service, did not respond to comment requests.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a “drill, baby, drill” agenda, and his administration has moved to weaken or remove protections for species that impede that agenda. In March, a powerful federal panel dubbed the “God Squad” convened for the first time in three decades, voting to exempt oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from measures designed to protect endangered whales and other imperiled species.
The dunes sagebrush lizard, measuring less than three inches in length, inhabits sand dunes and shinnery oak shrubs that supply food, shade, and breeding sites. In 2007, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List classified the species as vulnerable, indicating a high risk of extinction in the wild.
When the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the lizard as endangered in 2024, it determined that activities related to oil and gas drilling—such as road construction and well‑pad clearing—could damage or destroy the duneland ecosystem. The agency also cited climate‑change‑driven hotter and drier conditions as additional threats.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued, arguing that the Fish and Wildlife Service did not employ the best scientific and commercial data. He also accused the Biden administration of a “backdoor attempt to undermine Texas’s oil and gas industry.”
Representatives for Mr. Paxton, who recently secured a Republican primary runoff win for a U.S. Senate seat with an endorsement from Mr. Trump, did not respond to a comment request.
Two Republican members of Congress—August Pfluger of Texas and Tracey Mann of Kansas—introduced legislation last year to delist the dunes sagebrush lizard and to bar any future listing. The bill, known as the LIZARD Act (Limiting Incredulous Zealots Against Restricting Drilling), faces an uncertain future.
