Posted on 06/13/2012 12:59:05 PM PDT by CedarDave
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) A contentious battle over a rare lizard found only in New Mexico and West Texas oil and gas country took a surprising turn Wednesday with federal officials deciding not to bestow endangered species protections on the small reptile.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the much-anticipated decision over the dunes sagebrush lizard was based on the best available science and because of voluntary conservation agreements now in place in the two states.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
Im so happy the lizard’s ok.
Dune Lizard says “Whew!”
Election year politics. WAY different outcome have this been 2011 or 2013.

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The EPA is waiting in the gulch to ambush the drillers!

No. I'm sure Obama signed off on it. NM's two Rat senators also signed off knowing that to shut down the one sector of NM's economy that is actually putting money into the state treasury would backfire in this fall's election (Bingaman is retiring).
Election year politics. The water is hot. The script is being changed in hopes they can come back and revisit all this largesse later. Anything they can give they can take away.
They must be expelled for any hope of safety and the law changed so that they can never do this to us again.
If we need to make any changes to the Constitution we need to make the restriction of powers to the federal government even more explicit and restrictive. I don’t know how much more it can be than to have said what the powers are and that all other powers are for the states but it has to be tightened. The commerce clause needs to be made much more explicit and restrictive. The powers of the president need to be restricted and the executive order needs to be tightened almost to the point of non-existence. On and on.
Our guys in the field tell me they’re all over the place out there — love to hang out around tank batteries.
True. They may not have listed the lizard as endangered but the EPA/BLM are coming after drillers with new fracking rules.
“Can we expect an executive order overruling this.”
November 7, 09:00.
Someone should photoshop gore’s face on the lizard. ;-)
Cute sucker.
The Geico Gecko could not be reached for a comment.
Oh that’s a dune lizard! I’ve been wondering what these things running all over my place in Western Oklahoma were....only found in New Mexico and West Texas, LOL!
And just to be clear, we know them here as Sagebrush Lizard, very cool little animals. Once they get to know you they’ll let you get very close....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagebrush_lizard
Cute sucker.
Yup.
... described the dunes sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus graciosus arenicolus) as a subspecies of the sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus graciosus). The dunes sagebrush lizard was elevated to a species in 1992 ...
Only a biologist using an DNA test could tell them apart. Like the spotted owls, they are close relatives of a non-endangered healthy species.
(BTW, the government proposes to save spotted owls in the northwest by KILLING their cousins, the barred owl. See this article and be astounded and upset at the what the have planned.
Spotted owl recovery plan calls for killing barred owls ... )
“Cute sucker.”
If you want cute, go see a Desert Tortoise. The feds call them endangered and have shut down much of the Mojave Desert ‘supposedly’ because of them. But they are ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE. Their shell is about 1 foot in diameter, so you can pick them up and have fun with them.
I’m still a right-wing extremist...but like a feminist, seeing the baby’s heartbeat makes me pause for a moment.
Can they catch frisbees, or something cool like that?
“Can they catch frisbees, or something cool like that?”
Certainly not that cool. They just dig hanging out and checking out the real estate. But they are adorable.
Agree with everything you said. Even when we get a good outcome like this we still have to wait around like medieval peasants gathering around the town crier to hear the king’s latest royal decree. Not how things are supposed to work.
No stability. Forever uncertainty.
Recipe for stagnation and fear.
Just what it takes for control.
Same way you control and break a Prisioner.
So...if this would have gone the other way, Oil/Gas Drilling, which benefits families, towns, neighborhoods, and communities, would have been shut down, to protect some little bug sucking reptile.
Yeah...that makes sense. We suffer higher $$$$ gas prices, because some liberal POS feels bad about a lizard.
I went to sleep one night in America, and woke up in Bizzaro-f***ing World...
Why do we continue to let the insane, mental-diseased left decide what we can and can’t do with OUR country’s resources?
In my not so humble opinion it would be utter foolishness at this time to change one word of the constitution. Of what use is it to change what would not need to be changed if we were following it now and why would anyone think that those who spit on the constitution now would suddenly honor it if we change it?
Most of the ills that this country suffers now can be traced to a failure to honor the constitution. Our elections have become spectacles equivalent to gladiatorial contests in the Roman coliseum but instead of sword or trident the contestants use campaign promises to violate the constitution. Listen closely and that is what it amounts to, promises of new legislation which will violate the clear meaning of the constitution and what happens when one wins? He is sworn into office with an oath to support and defend the very document which he promised to rip to shreds in the process of winning the office. It is all a farce.
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