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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 103 / Tuesday, June 1, 2021 / Proposed Rules
List of Acronyms We use many acronyms in this proposed rule. For the convenience of the reader, we define some of them here:

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ACEC = Area of Critical Environmental Concern BLM = Bureau of Land Management CI = confidence interval CCAA = candidate conservation agreement with assurances CCA/A = candidate conservation agreement and candidate conservation agreement with assurances CPW = Colorado Parks and Wildlife CRP = Conservation Reserve Program DPS = Distinct Population Segment KDWPT = Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism LPCI = Lesser Prairie-Chicken Initiative LPN = Listing Priority Number NRCS = Natural Resources Conservation Service ODWC = Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation PFW = the Services Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program RMPA = Resource Management Plan Amendment RWP = Lesser Prairie-Chicken Range-wide Conservation Plan SSA = Species Status Assessment TPWD = Texas Parks and Wildlife Department USFS = U.S. Forest Service WAFWA = Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
Previous Federal Actions In 1973, the Services Office of Endangered Species published a list of threatened wildlife of the United States in Resource Publication 114, often referred to as the Red Book. While this publication did not, by itself, provide any special protections, it served in part to solicit additional information regarding the status of the identified taxa. The lesser prairiechicken was one of 70 birds included in this publication Service 1973, pp. 134
135, but little Federal regulatory action occurred on the lesser prairie-chicken until 1995.
On October 6, 1995, we received a petition, dated October 5, 1995, from the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Boulder, Colorado, and Marie E. Morrissey petitioners. The petitioners requested that we list the lesser prairie-chicken as threatened throughout its known historical range in the United States.
The petitioners also requested that critical habitat be designated as soon as the needs of the species are sufficiently well known. However, from October 1995 through April 1996, we were under a moratorium on listing actions as a result of Public Law 1046, which, along with a series of continuing budget resolutions, eliminated or severely reduced our listing budget through
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April 1996. We were unable to act on the petition during that period.
On July 8, 1997 62 FR 36482, we announced our 90-day finding that the petition presented substantial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted. We subsequently published our 12-month finding for the lesser prairie-chicken on June 9, 1998 63 FR 31400, concluding that the petitioned action was warranted but precluded by other higher priority listing actions. This 12-month finding identified the lesser prairie-chicken as a candidate for listing with a listing priority number LPN of 8, indicating that the magnitude of threats was moderate and the immediacy of the threats to the species was high.
On January 8, 2001 66 FR 1295, we published our resubmitted petition findings for 25 animal species, including the lesser prairie-chicken, having outstanding warranted-butprecluded petition findings as well as notice of one candidate removal. The lesser prairie-chicken remained a candidate with an LPN of 8 in our October 30, 2001 66 FR 54808; June 13, 2002 67 FR 40657; May 4, 2004 69
FR 24876; May 11, 2005 70 FR 24870;
September 12, 2006 71 FR 53756; and December 6, 2007 72 FR 69034
candidate notices of review. In our December 10, 2008 73 FR 75176, candidate notice of review, we changed the LPN for the lesser prairie-chicken from an 8 to a 2. This change in LPN
reflected a change in the magnitude of the threats from moderate to high primarily due to an anticipated increase in the development of wind energy and associated placement of transmission lines throughout the estimated occupied range of the lesser prairie-chicken. Our November 9, 2009 74 FR 57804, November 10, 2010 75 FR 69222, and October 26, 2011 76 FR 66370
candidate notices of review retained an LPN of 2 for the lesser prairie-chicken.
After making our 12-month finding in 1998, we received several 60-day notices of intent to sue from WildEarth Guardians formerly Forest Guardians and several other parties for failure to make expeditious progress toward listing of the lesser prairie-chicken.
WildEarth Guardians subsequently filed suit on September 1, 2010, in the U.S.
District Court for the District of Colorado.
In 2011, the Service entered into a settlement agreement with WildEarth Guardians that impacted multiple cases nationwide In re Endangered Species Act Section 4 Deadline Litigation, No.
10377 EGS, MDL Docket No. 2165
D.D.C. May 10, 2011. As relevant to the lesser prairie-chicken, the agreement
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required the Service to submit a proposed listing rule for the lesser prairie-chicken to the Federal Register for publication by September 30, 2012.
On September 27, 2012, the settlement agreement was modified to require that the proposed listing rule be submitted to the Federal Register on or before November 29, 2012. On December 11, 2012, we published a proposed rule 77 FR 73828 to list the lesser prairie-chicken as a threatened species under the Act 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.. On May 6, 2013, we announced the publication of a proposed 4d rule under the authority of section 4d of the Act 78 FR 26302.
On July 9, 2013, we announced a 6month extension 78 FR 41022 of the final listing determination based on our finding that there was substantial disagreement regarding the sufficiency or accuracy of the available data relevant to our determination regarding the proposed listing rule.
On April 10, 2014, we published a final rule listing the lesser prairiechicken as a threatened species under the Act 79 FR 19973 and concurrently published a final 4d rule for the lesser prairie-chicken 79 FR 20073. However, on September 1, 2015, the final listing rule for the lesser prairie-chicken was vacated by the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, which also mooted the final 4d rule.
On July 20, 2016, the Service published in the Federal Register a final rule that removed the lesser prairie-chicken from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in accordance with the court decision 81 FR 47047.
On September 8, 2016, we received a new petition from WildEarth Guardians, Defenders of Wildlife, and Center for Biological Diversity to list the lesser prairie-chicken as endangered throughout its entire range or in three distinct population segments Molvar 2016, entire. On November 30, 2016, we published a 90-day petition finding that concluded that the petition to list the lesser prairie-chicken provided substantial information that the petitioned action may be warranted 81
FR 86315. On June 12, 2019, the petitioners filed their complaint with the court alleging the Service failed to complete the 12-month petition finding for the lesser prairie-chicken. On September 12, 2019, the Service and the plaintiffs entered into a stipulated settlement agreement that the Service would submit a 12-month petition finding to the Federal Register no later than May 26, 2021. This 12-month finding completes the Services obligations under that settlement agreement.

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