Sage Grouse: "Bye-Bye, Birdie"

"Before lawmakers could agree to a $1.1 trillion, last-minute deal to avoid shutting down the U.S. government, they first had to deal with a couple of birds.

The result is a 1,603-page spending bill that includes a paragraph barring the Obama administration from approving endangered-species protections for two types of sage grouse, an imperiled, pheasant-like bird that is ruffling the petroleum industry’s feathers across the West by cohabiting on prime oil and gas land.

Now environmentalists are squawking. The grouse provision is 'grossly irresponsible,' Defenders of Wildlife CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark said Tuesday, while Randi Spivak of the Center for Biological Diversity called the legislation a 'death warrant' for a bird whose noisy, elaborate mating rituals attract tourists to so-called sagebrush safaris. National Audubon Society Vice President Brian Rutledge called it 'political chicanery.'"

Alex Guillén and Elana Schor report for Politico Pro December 10, 2014.