Posted by Steve Davies on September 2, 2015 .

A federal judge in Texas has removed Endangered Species Act protections for the lesser prairie chicken, which was listed as threatened last year (Permian Basin Petroleum Association v. Dep’t of the Interior, MO-14-50, W.D. Tex.).  | FWS press release on listing | FWS LPC page

Specifically, U.S. District Judge said that the Fish and Wildlife Service “failed to properly apply its [Policy for Evaluation of Conservation Efforts When Making Listing Decisions (PECE)] to its evaluation of the [Rangewide Plan] resulting in material error. This caused FWS to arbitrarily and capriciously list the LPC as a threatened species.”

The Center for Biological Diversity has issued a press release, in which CBD endangered species director Noah Greenwald said, “This court decision has no basis in law. Christmas came early this year for the oil and gas industry with a court decision specially gift wrapped for them straight out of Midland, Texas.”