The ending of the endangered species protection for the lizard was part of a settlement between the attorney general of Texas and the federal government. While the settlement now removes the protections from the lizard, the USFWS must reassess the status of the lizard.
After more than 15 years of legal wrangling, including a listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus) as an endangered species in 2024 under the Biden Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ended endangered species protections for the little reptile. Texas state attorney general Ken Paxton sued the Biden Administration in 2024, claiming data on the reptile was incomplete despite more than a decade of research and data collection.
The ending of the endangered species protection for the lizard was part of a settlement between the attorney general of Texas and the federal government. While the settlement now removes the protections from the lizard, the USFWS must reassess the status of the lizard.
Texas Sues Biden Administration Over Dunes Sagebrush Lizard ESA Listing
The lizard’s status has for more than 10 years been a contentious issue for the state of Texas and the Texas oil industry. The agency that was set up in 2013 to monitor the voluntary protection efforts for the dunes sagebrush lizard was comprised of oil industry lobbyists, according to a report in the Texas Tribune. The Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation was formed, supposedly in an effort to ensure that the agreements laid out to protect the lizard were enforced. That agency was disbanded.
Texas Comptroller Terminates Oil Industry Foundation set up to Protect Dunes Sagebrush Lizard
United States Rep. August Pfluger, R-San Angelo, TX filed a bill in 2023 designed to essentially weaken the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s ability to protect and list the dunes sagebrush lizard as an endangered species, in an effort to preserve the drilling of oil in the region in which the lizard is known to inhabit. The bill, “Limiting Incredulous Zealots Against Restricting Drilling” Act — or LIZARD Act, would have halted federal government oversight of species and to let individual and industry efforts to protect the dunes sagebrush lizard and other species that are endangered or could potentially be listed as endangered.
Paxton’s lawsuit effectively ended what Pfluger’s bill failed to do, end protections of the reptile.
The lizard is only found in the shinnery oak sand dune ecosystems of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. This ecosystem is also home to large oil and gas development and sand mining.
