AUSTIN — Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured a settlement vacating and remanding the Biden administration’s listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard as endangered, according to a release from the Office of the Attorney General. The office said the settlement ends a rule it argued unlawfully threatened Texas’s oil and gas industry.
According to the release, Paxton sued the Biden administration in September 2024 over its decision to list the dunes sagebrush lizard as endangered, arguing the listing violated the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The office alleged that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service relied on data that fell short of the “best available” standard required by law and ignored its own internal listing policies. The release also states the agency made arbitrary assumptions about the oil and gas industry’s impact on the species while leaving the industry without clear guidance on what conduct would violate the rule’s protections.
Under the settlement reached with the Trump administration, the release states that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged it failed to properly account for habitat restoration efforts in its original analysis under the Biden administration, producing what the office describes as an incomplete and potentially inaccurate picture of ongoing conservation work in Texas and New Mexico. According to the release, the agency will now issue a new 12-month finding determining whether a listing is not warranted, warranted, or warranted but precluded, with a decision expected within 24 months of the settlement’s entry.
Paxton, in a statement included in the release, said the Biden administration overlooked vital data when it listed the species as endangered, and said he was grateful the Trump administration recognized the error and committed to reevaluating the listing decision under the proper framework established by the Endangered Species Act. Paxton said Texas, its people, and its industries should not have to suffer the effects of an unlawful rule while the Fish and Wildlife Service completes further evaluation, adding that vacating the rule avoids those effects while ensuring the species’ status is properly assessed in the coming months.
According to the release, the Office of the Attorney General will continue monitoring the Fish and Wildlife Service’s review to ensure the lizard’s status is assessed using sound science and in full compliance with the law.
The full settlement is available through the Office of the Attorney General’s website.
