Why is Congress fighting with the Biden administration over the lesser prairie chicken?

Sen. Roger Marshall showed some of his Senate colleagues a video of the mating ritual of the lesser prairie chicken. Now, he said, everyone is talking about them.

“I grew up hunting prairie chickens, they’re very near and dear to me,” said Marshall, a Kansas Republican. “I want to do whatever we can to bring them back to better numbers.”

But for Marshall, that means getting the bird removed from the endangered species list.

Last year, the Biden administration placed the southern population of the lesser prairie chicken, based mostly in eastern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle, on the endangered species list and put the northern population, which is partially in southern and western Kansas, on the threatened list.

The move reignited a yearslong battle between rural Kansans and the federal government, part of a larger debate over environmental regulations and conservation.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach in April signed onto a Texas-led lawsuit seeking to overturn the endangered species designation.

For Marshall and the 49 other senators who voted to pass a resolution disapproving of the rule Wednesday night — which the White House has said President Joe Biden will veto if it clears the House — Uncle Sam’s protection of the lesser prairie chicken, which is technically a grouse, is going too far.

Marshall’s argument — with which he was able to convince Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, to join the Republicans to disapprove of the rule — is as follows.

He likes the lesser prairie chicken. He would like the lesser prairie chicken to continue to exist. But he feels local conservation efforts are doing enough to support the grouse. The decline in the bird’s population over the past few years, he said, is because of the drought in Western Kansas. If the rain comes back, the bird will come back.

“If they list the prairie chicken, this is not only going to make it harder for the oil and gas industry, but it’s also going to make it harder for farmers and ranchers, as well as getting the wind energy out of those wind farms from western Kansas,” Marshall said.

He said the increased regulatory burden will eventually drive up prices of energy and food for Americans.

The Biden administration disagrees. It said the lesser prairie chicken’s historical habitat on the Great Plains has decreased by about 90 percent and that intervention is scientifically necessary to save the species from extinction. It says that almost every species that has been added to the endangered species list over the past 50 years is still around.

“The lesser prairie-chicken serves as an indicator for healthy grasslands and prairies, making them an important measure of the overall health of America’s grasslands, a treasured and storied landscape,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement opposing the resolution. “Overturning common-sense protections for the lesser prairie-chicken would undermine America’s proud wildlife conservation traditions, risk the extinction of a once-abundant American bird, and create uncertainty for landowners and industries.”

The administration argued overturning the rule would undermine the Endangered Species Act and could put other animals at risk of losing protection.

Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican who pushed for the resolution with Marshall, said he believes there is enough of a local conservation effort that the federal government shouldn’t have listed the grouse to begin with.

“What have I got against prairie chickens?” Moran said while walking to the Senate floor Wednesday. “Nothing. I want to see them thrive.”