last ice age, leading some experts to project that the species could become increasingly vulnerable as global climate change increases the humidity in semiarid regions. United States In the United States, the species was a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) was forced by the US Congress to not grant endangered species status in September 2015. The original petition to list the greater sage-grouse was mailed to the USFWS in June, 2002 by Craig Dremann of Redwood City. Dremann, for his petition, quoted a Department of Interior document about the declining status of the bird, putting the USFWS in the difficult position of having to argue against another Federal agency's findings. The reason why Dremann sought the listing, is after driving across the bird's range in 1997, and noting what vegetation grew at each post mile, from California to South Dakota and back, recorded how damaged and destroyed the native sagebrush understory habitat had become from lack of management of the grazing of public lands. The following groups have supported Dremann's petition to list: American Lands Alliance, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Native Ecosystems, WildEarth Guardians, the Fund for Animals, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Hells Canyon Preservation Council, The Larch Company, The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, Oregon Natural Desert Association, Oregon Natural Resources Council, Predator Defense Institute, Sierra Club, Sinapu, Western Fire Ecology Center, Western Watersheds Project, Wild Utah Project, and Wildlands CPR. In 2010, after a second review, the Department of the Interior assigned the greater sage-grouse a status known as "warranted but precluded", essentially putting it on a waiting list (behind more critically threatened species) for federal protection. Since half of all remaining sage grouse habitat is on private lands, the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service launched the Sage Grouse Initiative, a partnership-based, science-driven, Farm Bill-funded effort that uses voluntary incentives to proactively conserve America's western rangelands, wildlife, and rural way of life. The Sage Grouse Initiative has partnered with 1,500+ ranchers across 11 states since 2010, conserving 5.5 million acres of sage grouse habitat (twice the size of Yellowstone National Park). In April 2014, the Sage-Grouse and Endangered Species Conservation and Protection Act (H.R.4419) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to prohibit the federal government from listing sage grouse under the Endangered