For Immediate Release, October 19, 2026
Contact:
- Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project, (307) 399-7910, emolvar@westernwatersheds.org
- Randi Spivak, Center for Biological Diversity, (310) 779-4894, rspivak@biologicaldiversity.org
- Andrew Missel, Advocates for the West, (503) 506-5133, amissel@advocateswest.org
Legal Intervention Seeks to Defend Sage Grouse from Oil Industry Lawsuit
CHEYENNE, Wyo.— Western Watersheds Project and the Center for Biological Diversity have filed a motion to intervene in, and dismiss, an oil industry lawsuit that asks a court to affirm the Trump administration’s latest greater sage grouse management plan for Wyoming.
The conservation groups say the Western Energy Alliance’s case, which suffers from a host of legal defects, may be nothing more than cover for a settlement with the Trump administration to shield the administration’s sage grouse plans from lawsuits seeking to overturn them. The Trump plans largely eliminated earlier sage grouse habitat protections.
The plaintiffs in the case — the Western Energy Alliance and the state of Wyoming — do not allege that the Bureau of Land Management broke the law. What they seek, in part, is confirmation by a court that the Bureau complied with the law. The U.S. Constitution does not permit such friendly lawsuits.
“As the great band Spinal Tap famously said, ‘There’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.’ This lawsuit falls comfortably on the ‘stupid’ side of that line,” said Andrew Missel, attorney for Advocates for the West, which represents the conservation groups. “You can’t sue your friend to get a judge to say how great your friend is.”
The recent plan amendments approved by the Trump administration weaken or remove habitat protections that formerly imposed limits on density of industrial development, amounts of allowable grass removal by livestock, and where oil and gas wells, roads and powerlines could be sited in relation to sensitive sage grouse breeding and nesting habitats.
Long known to be one of the more sensitive barometers of land health, sage grouse population numbers have continued to decline because of excessive livestock grazing and the encroachment of oil and gas fields and other industrial sites into their most sensitive habitats.
“The fact that the oil industry is trying to sue to affirm, rather than challenge, the new federal sage grouse plans is a sign that they are nervous that the plans will be overturned elsewhere,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. “The oil industry and the Trump administration have asked for a pause in the proceedings so they can pursue a ‘resolution of th[e] case on just terms, mutually agreeable to all involved.’ That sounds a lot like a euphemism for a shady deal, and we intend to stop it from happening.”
The groups filed the request to intervene in the oil industry lawsuit on Thursday. Multiple coalitions of conservation groups have challenged the Trump administration sage grouse amendments, with cases pending before the U.S. District Court of Montana.
“We’re intervening because when both sides of a lawsuit want the same outcome, nobody is speaking up for greater sage grouse and the lands they need to survive,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The oil and gas industry and the state of Wyoming aren’t really suing the Trump administration. They’re asking a judge to hand them a gold star. The administration’s plans gutted habitat protections. No court should rubber-stamp that.”
“One might wonder, why hasn’t the federal government tried to dismiss the oil industry’s lawsuit?” added Missel, attorney for the conservation groups. “I’m afraid the most obvious explanations don’t reflect well on the Bureau of Land Management or the Department of Justice.”
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