"BILLINGS, Mont. — The Trump administration has completed a review of plans to ease protections for a struggling bird species in seven states in the U.S. West, but there’s little time to put the relaxed rules for industry into action before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The ground-dwelling, chicken-sized greater sage grouse has been at the center of a long-running dispute over how much of the American West’s expansive public lands should be developed.
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration in 2019 from its plans to relax rules on mining, drilling and grazing across millions of acres of land because of potential harm to the sage grouse."
Matthew Brown reports for the Associated Press January 13, 2021.
Source: AP, 01/13/2021
