WASHINGTON – The Trump administration reportedly will announce revised plans for protecting the greater sage-grouse as soon as this week in what conservationists criticize as a giveaway to the oil and gas industry.

The formal notice of intent would amend 98 habitat management plans in 11 Western states, including Colorado, according to an advance copy leaked to The New York Times.

The Obama administration’s Interior Department completed the plans in 2015 after a decade of consulting with conservationists, local authorities, industry groups and hunters.

Environmentalists say Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke revised the plans following complaints from the oil and gas industry that they go too far in restricting their ability to extract minerals. Industry officials accused the Obama administration of exaggerating risks the sage-grouse would become endangered.

About 4 percent of the nation’s sage-grouse live in Colorado. Although their numbers are disputed, the Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies estimates there are more than 424,000 breeding sage-grouse in the United States.

John Swartout, the Colorado governor’s senior advisor on environment and natural resources, advised against making judgments of any amended Interior Department proposals until they are officially announced.

A notice of intent would require a 45-day comment period to give states, environmentalists and commercial enterprises an opportunity to contribute their opinions. The entire regulatory change process could take years and face court challenges.

The notice of intent “is just a mechanism that would allow them to do plan amendments,” Swartout told Colorado Politics.

He said any revisions should respond to unique characteristics of each state, such as the “checkerboard landscape” of private, federal and state land ownership in Colorado that can make protecting the sage-grouse difficult.

“Depending on the kind of terrain you’re in, the plans are different,” Swartout said.

The plateaus in Colorado’s Garfield and Rio Blanco counties create different obstacles to habitat protection than the higher fire hazards in Nevada and Idaho, he said.

Colorado has spent about $50 million researching and arranging sage-grouse habitat protection, Swartout said.

“Our grouse numbers have been moving in the right direction,” he said. “The numbers are on the upswing.”

Zinke ordered a review of sage-grouse protection plans earlier this year, partly in response to complaints they impede energy production. An Interior Department task force recommended changes in August in a 53-page report.

The environmental group Western Values Project condemned the recommendations as “a near carbon copy of requests from the oil and gas industry.”

“These actions put at risk not only sagebrush landscapes but the communities in the rural West whose economies rely on more than just the oil and gas industry,” said Chris Saeger, the Western Values Project’s executive director. “Every rancher, hunter, wildlife advocate and community member in sagebrush country should be concerned with the heavy hand of Zinke’s mandate that was passed to appease special interests.”

In July, Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, tried to protect the sage-grouse by introducing a bill in Congress to streamline the regulatory approval process for removing vegetation that threatened the birds’ habitat.

Juniper and Pinon trees have been encroaching into sage-grouse nesting areas while raising risks of wildfires that could destroy their habitat.

Sage-grouse look like chickens with white, inflated chests. They are well-known for their elaborate mating dances.

If their numbers decline to a level of an endangered species, federal regulations require broader restrictions on activities that threaten them. The habitat management plans were developed with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to keep the birds off the endangered species list.

The Western Energy Alliance, a trade group for energy companies, criticized the habitat management plans as an obstacle to economic development.

“Given the huge range of its habitat, these BLM and USFS land use plans will have enormous economic and social consequences in western rural communities and will place vast energy resources off limits,” according to a statement from the Western Energy Alliance.

However, Jessica Goad, spokesperson for the environmental group Conservation Colorado, said the Trump administration should leave its hands off the existing habitat management plans.

Any changes to the plans could “eradicate one of our nation’s most monumental conservation efforts,” Goad said. “Meanwhile, ranchers, landowners, sportsmen, conservationists and even oil and gas operators are forced to again deal with an elevated level of uncertainty as the political pendulum swings back and forth, placing the future of hundreds of species that depend on the West’s sagebrush country at further risk.”