A rider on the recent funding bill passed by the U.S. Congress prohibits the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from extending any further protections for either the Greater Sage Grouse or the Gunnison Sage Grouse over the next year, according to an article “Congress’s hostile takeover of endangered species efforts” by Eric Molvar, of WildEarth Guardians, published in The Hill on December 15.

This rider will harm not only the sage grouse, but the scores of other wildlife species that they share their eco-systems with. It also runs counter to the rule of law.

The land in the interior West of the U.S. is suffering badly from chronic overgrazing, fragmented and destroyed eco-systems, invasive cheatgrass, and too-frequent wildfires.

Decades of efforts by conservationists to remedy this damage have just been undermined by this rider. The expertise of scientists who have spent their lives studying these issues has been swept aside…