[CedarDave]

The environmentalists finally lost one, the economy and people were put ahead of a lizard.

Only because it's an election year and one of NM's senators (Bingaman) is retiring. Putting the bite on the one sector of NM's economy that's actually putting money in the state treasury would backfire badly in the fall. As the full article says, the feds can revisit this later and still could list it if they determine conservation agreements aren't working.

See also:

Ruling on sagebrush lizard expected this week

Feds Decline Protections for Dune Lizard (oil-gas drilling in Permian Basin can continue)

[jazusamo]

Yep, when they mentioned they could come back later with a listing kinda jumped out at me and the election coming up makes sense.

Thanks for the links, I’ll check them out.