1. ENDANGERED SPECIES: Interior lists polar bears as threatened (E&ENews PM, 05/14/2008)

Katie Howell, E&ENews PM reporter

The Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species today, blaming the loss of sea ice for the species' decline.

The ruling will allow the United States to "reduce avoidable losses of polar bears" but will not allow the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions linked to warming temperatures, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said at a Washington news conference.

"That would be a totally inappropriate use of the Endangered Species Act," Kempthorne said. "ESA is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy."

To prevent misuse of the law, Kempthorne said he would impose a rule that he said would protect the bear but allow continued development of natural resources in the Arctic.

Encouraging the Fish and Wildlife Service to use the "best scientific data available today," Kempthorne said the agency would not make connections between the decline of the species and its habitat and greenhouse gas emissions from specific facilities, development projects or government actions.

"We know the earth has warmed, and we know man is factor in that," Kempthorne said. "We cannot tell you what extent that may have in regard to this [listing]."

The Fish and Wildlife Service was under a court-imposed deadline to decide on the polar bear listing after the agency missed the original deadline for a decision in January.

Kempthorne said the January postponement was necessary because the agency needed time to complete its analysis of the scientific data.

"I read what their biologists had submitted -- the official questions raised by Alaska," said Lyle Laverty, Interior's assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. "I wanted to be satisfied we could answer every one of those questions before a decision was made."

Kempthorne said the decision was not postponed to allow time for the February oil-and-gas lease sale to take place in polar bear habitat, the Chukchi Sea basin.

"If we had been able to make polar bear decision, it would have preceded the lease sale," Kempthorne said.

Canadian proposal

The new ruling accompanies a Canadian draft proposal to list polar bears as a species of special concern, a category of protection that the United States does not have. The Canadian ruling will allow for continued polar bear hunting by subsistence and commercial hunters in Canada. Polar bear hunting in Alaska is illegal.

Interior's decision was protested by the Alaska Wilderness League, whose members attended the press conference wearing polar bear suits and carrying signs that said, "Global Warming = Extinction" and "Dirk Kempthorne, You're on Our List."

"While we don't know yet the implications of this decision, we are glad to see that Secretary Kempthorne is finally taking steps to protect this imperiled species," Cindy Shogan, the group's executive director, said in a press release.

But Shogan urged a suspension of oil and gas activities in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas until Interior can guarantee protection for polar bears.

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