'ONE OF THE LARGEST FEDERAL LAND GRABS'

The Obama Administration may have finally found a way to stop the boom in U.S. energy production. Delaying approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, maintaining export limits and discouraging refinery construction haven't stopped a revolution that will soon make the United States the world's largest producer of crude oil. But a Journal editorial this morning notes that Washington may add a record 757 new species to the endangered list by 2018. Included on the roster of potentially protected critters are two range birds—the greater sage grouse and the lesser prairie chicken—that could severely restrict energy production across a broad swath of the American West.

"The prairie chicken sits atop Texas's Permian Basin oil bonanza, and the sage grouse is near the Bakken Shale in North Dakota," notes the editorial. An Interior Department report claims the impact on the sage grouse of oil and gas operations is "universally negative and typically severe," even though current horizontal drilling techniques leave only a small footprint on the landscape.

WASHINGTON SUDDENLY CARES ABOUT 2007 PROBLEM

The Journal reports that General Motors "faced new pressure from a powerful member of Congress to explain why it took nearly a decade to recall 1.6 million vehicles for faulty ignitions linked to 13 deaths, even as the auto maker hired a high-profile lawyer to lead its internal investigation and stepped up warnings to customers."

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, uncle to a supermodel, will investigate the slow recall and plans to hold hearings. But perhaps his investigation should begin in Washington instead of Detroit. According to the Journal, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration "hasn't said why it didn't take action after one of its own officials pointed out the potential problem during a March 2007 meeting. NHTSA officials have declined to comment on the meeting or provide any documentation about it."

ERIC HOLDER'S PRIORITIES

In an interview published Friday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said that the FBI and President Obama concluded there were no crimes in the IRS targeting of conservative organizations—when prosecutors had hardly begun to even interview the victims.

Meanwhile, today's news of a federal subpoena for records of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey highlights an altogether different type of prosecutorial urgency. The Department of Justice has deployed no fewer than two U.S. Attorneys' offices to investigate the closing of New Jersey traffic lanes and related questions.

SOFTBALLS FOR SNOWDEN

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden was allowed to present himself as a champion of liberty as he appeared on video from his new adopted homeland in Russia at a Texas technology event. But if he's so concerned about the NSA spying on U.S. citizens at home, why was so much of the material he stole related to U.S. military operations abroad?

RAND PAUL'S TAKE ON THE REAGAN LEGACY

In a Monday op-ed for conservative website Breitbart.com, Sen. Rand Paul (R. Ky.) writes that "Every Republican likes to think he or she is the next Ronald Reagan. Some who say this do so for lack of their own ideas and agenda. Reagan was a great leader and President. But too often people make him into something he wasn't in order to serve their own political purposes."

Mr. Paul, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, argues that some remember Reagan for his commitment to a strong national defense but forget that Reagan also believed in diplomacy and rarely used military force. Writes Paul, "What America needs today is a Commander-in-Chief who will defend the country and project strength, but who is also not eager for war."