DENVER- The Trump administration is canceling plans to sell oil and gas drilling rights on public land in Western Colorado because of the Greater Sage Grouse. The Bureau of Land Management is removing over 147, 000 acres of land from a planned December auction. Governor John Hickenlooper and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, asked the bureau to reconsider the sale. The land is habitat for the greater sage grouse, which Western states and federal agencies are trying to protect. The withdrawal leaves over 83,000 acres in the December auction, but it wasn’t clear if the government planned to add to that. The government also pushed the sale back by a week, from Dec. 6 to Dec. 13.
