Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is heading to federal court to challenge the Interior Department’s safeguards for the dunes sagebrush lizard.
Paxton, a Republican, argued in a lawsuit filed Monday that Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service did not rely on the best available scientific and commercial data when it classified the reptile as endangered in May. The move provided special protections for the tiny light-brown lizard and limited availability of lands in Texas’ Permian Basin to oil and gas production.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s unlawful misuse of environmental law is a backdoor attempt to undermine Texas’s oil and gas industries which help keep the lights on for America,” Paxton said in a statement. “I warned that we would sue over this illegal move, and now we will see them in court.”
Paxton’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleges that FWS made the Endangered Species Act listing decision without enough information about the full population of the dunes sagebrush lizard, which is found in both New Mexico and Texas. Instead, the agency used modeling to estimate the animal’s population and viability.
