The Trump administration said it plans to weaken protections for a beetle facing a threat of extinction from climate change, a move welcomed by oil and natural gas drillers lobbying for the change. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week a proposal to change the status of the American burying beetle from “endangered” to merely “threatened,” which would make it easier for oil and gas producers who must work around the insect when drilling and laying pipeline. With that change in status, which has yet to be finalized, energy producers and other businesses in oil-rich Oklahoma would no longer need to seek out federal permits to operate in the insect’s habitat. Ranchers there and in other states to the north, including Nebraska and South Dakota, would also be exempt from what many of them see […]