Gunnison Sage GrouseWe barely escaped one campaign to list the sage grouse as an endangered species, and now the drumbeat has sounded once again to start anew.

A Washington Post article declares that oil and gas development in Colorado and other Western states will harm the bird, despite new regulations on the industry and the new federal program restricting development and grazing.

Disclosure: their findings are based on a study that was published in 2008, and conducted decades before the new program to save the bird went into effect.

Kathleen Sgamma with the Western Energy Alliance industry group said the researchers ignored changes to federal and state land use policies meant to concentrate drilling in some areas and avoid impacting the most sensitive sage grouse habitat.

Now environmentalists are quibbling over what actually “affects” the birds, not kill or harm, just makes them have a bad day or something.

Now they argue that it’s not the well pad, it’s all that activity that goes with the well. You know, people.