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After a year of deliberation, another four months in overtime and multiple lawsuits from environmental groups, the Bush Administration today listed the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). But it may not matter much. At a press conference in Washington, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne acknowledged that Arctic sea ice - vital for the polar bears' survival - was clearly receding, and that scientific studies by the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) estimated some 30% decline in sea ice by mid-century. (A study by the USGS released last September projected a two-thirds decline in the world...
...short months. Spotting a big yellow placard that said GAS TAX HOLIDAY IS BLATANT PANDERING - a sign she would have ignored in her earlier, less feisty incarnations - she went after the young Obamish sign-holders: Why wasn't the Federal Reserve accused of pandering when it bailed out the Bear Stearns investment bank to the tune of $30 billion? Why shouldn't the oil companies pay the federal gasoline tax this summer instead of the people who "hold their breath" every time they pull up to the gas pump? "I know that some people don't have to worry when...
...those who oppose listing the polar bear, including several western Senators, say that the species does in fact appear to be O.K. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, calls sea ice studies such as the one run by USGS a "classic case of reality versus unproven computer models." In fact, he says, the number of polar bears has increased over the past half-century as a result of initiatives like the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which sharply curtailed bear hunting; he thinks declaring the animal endangered...
...increases in litigation and eager lawyers ready to find ways to shut down energy production," says Inhofe, who has held two hearings this year for which he rounded up a retinue of doubtful experts. "These special interest groups believe no oil and gas leases should be allowed until the bear is listed, its critical habitat designated and a recovery plan put in place. That could be a very long time...
Those oil- and gas-drilling leases include the $2 billion February sale of rights to 30 million acres of the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast, home to about a fifth of the world's remaining polar bears. Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity and the author of the initial petition to list the polar bear takes the opposite view; she figures the FWS decision was delayed to allow the sale to go through in the first place. Not surprising coming from an Administration Siegel calls rabidly "anti-wildlife." The scarcity of animals that have been listed...