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The Interior Department is expected to make a decision on the polar bear's status under the Endangered Species Act in the coming days. With a planned oil and gas exploration lease sale set for the Chukchi Sea this week, many members of Congress and environmentalists have urged Interior to make its decision prior to the sale. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has said such timing on the decision would be unlikely. During today's OnPoint, Margaret Williams, managing director of the Bering Sea program at the World Wildlife Fund gives the latest on this developing story. She explains why she believes protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is necessary. Williams comments on concerns that the ESA decision could be misused in the future to regulate carbon dioxide emitting industries. She also responds to criticism that blocking oil and gas exploration may have economic ramifications.
Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today is Margaret Williams, managing director of the Bering Sea program at the World Wildlife Fund. Margaret, thanks for coming on the show.
Margaret Williams: Thanks for having me.
Monica Trauzzi: Margaret, you testified last week before the Senate EPW Committee on whether or not the polar bear should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. It's a pretty controversial decision because the listing would be the first that links it to global warming. Why should Interior be listing the polar bear, that it's threatened because of global warming?
Margaret Williams: Well, the Endangered Species Act requires a close look at science and it requires us to look at the science of the species and we have a lot of unequivocal science about polar bears, about their relationship to sea ice, about the lack of see ice, about the loss of sea ice. We've lost about 10 percent of sea ice per decade in the last 30 years. So there's been a lot of great peer-reviewed science, very serious scientific studies that show these changes are occurring. And it's pretty undebatable that this is necessary to list the polar bear.
Monica Trauzzi: But has the loss of sea ice also been ... has that sort of followed a same track as loss of polar bears or are the numbers of polar bears not changing in relation to the loss of sea ice?
Margaret Williams: Well, in the two most studied populations in the Arctic, the western Hudson Bay and the southern Beaufort Sea, we have seen changes in numbers. In the western Hudson Bay, in the last 20 years, that population has declined by 22 percent. We've seen worsening body condition, poorer reproduction, poorer cub survival, and that has directly been tied to the sea ice change. So, unfortunately, we haven't had as many long-term studies and as many close field studies as we have had in the western Beaufort Sea and the southern Beaufort Sea. But also in the southern Beaufort Sea we've seen those sorts of changes too, a drop in numbers and things like drownings and male cannibalism on polar bears, things that had not been recorded earlier. So these are all signs of nutritional stress on these populations.
Monica Trauzzi: So, we're now awaiting a response from the Interior Department on how the polar bear is going to be listed. And there's some urgency to this case because there is a lease sale coming up at the end of this week for the Chukchi Sea lease sale. And how important or how critical is it that the decision be made before this lease sale occurs?
Margaret Williams: We think it's very important because once a species is listed certain consultations are required between federal agencies as to actions which may impact the species. So our request to the Secretary of Interior has been to delay the lease sale until the species is listed and to delay the lease sale until we can be sure that the polar bear and other marine mammals will be protected.
Monica Trauzzi: How, specifically, would increased oil and gas exploration impact the polar bear?
Margaret Williams: Well, in its own plan for the five-year program to develop our offshore resources for 2007 to 20012, Minerals Management Services estimate that 75 to 1000 oil spills could take place in the Chukchi Sea alone. So that's pretty significant we think. And we also, although climate change is definitely the leading threat to polar bears, we think it's important to reduce other sources of stress and disturbance. And there are a number of types of disturbance that come with oil development, from seismic and noise disturbance to increased shipping and then of course the potential for oil spills. And in its own studies both the Fish and Wildlife Service and Minerals Management Service have recognized that an oil spill could be fatal for bears which would come into contact with oil. So, again, climate change is the main threat, but we need to think about reducing other disturbances to polar bears.
Monica Trauzzi: On the climate change front though, can the emissions of one power plant or one lease-sale area really be tied to the overall impact that CO2 might be having on these polar bears?
Margaret Williams: Well, the decision is not about the emissions of this particular lease sale. And I think that's why there's a lot of opposition and controversy, is that there's a misunderstanding that the listing of the polar bear is going to stop every other kind of power plant or every other kind of development and that's just not the case. Again, the Endangered Species Act requires us to look at the science of the particular species in question. And we have a lot of science that tells us about the polar bear, the condition of the bear, the relationship to its habitat, and that's the basis on which the decision should be made. And then these other things also present threats to the polar bear habitat.
Monica Trauzzi: But there is a fear that the ESA decision might be sort of misused down the line to be applied to all reaches of global warming. Do you think that that's a valid fear?
Margaret Williams: I don't really. And I don't think that this is going to - also there's a misnomer that this will stop the development of Alaska and it's going to shut down the economy of Alaska. And I'm from Alaska. I have property in Alaska. I don't want that to happen. None of us want that to happen. So I think in future cases in other parts of the United States each case would be looked at on a case-by-case basis. But I don't think that's what's going to happen.
Monica Trauzzi: But I mean there are a lot of states that could financially benefit from increased oil and gas exploration, so there could be economic ramifications here.
Margaret Williams: Well, again, the polar bear listing is not going to necessarily shut down the lease sale or the five-year plan, but what we would like to see is a much closer look at the science. We would like to see better practices in place that would allow companies to respond to oil spills or other events. And in its own five-year program, Minerals Management Service admitted to having huge gaps in knowledge about whales, about walrus, about other marine resources. So those are the things we think that should be answered, the data gap should be filled before this would be going forward. And we've seen, in a lot of cases, when the proper precautions have not been taken the resulting costs of cleaning up the spills and doing the backward cleanup work is incredibly expensive. Just one example, four years ago in another part of Alaska, a little bit further south, but it is in Alaska's rough waters, there was an oil spill, a shipwreck. And that was a very, very costly spill. It's cost about $100 million to clean this up in America's, one of America's most important fisheries areas. And the Chukchi Sea is also very valuable for marine wildlife, for subsistence resources, which are valuable to native Alaskans. So there are other costs to consider really. And then there's also economic opportunities that should be considered, looking at alternative energy, solar power, wind power. Alaska is really the place to be thinking about other types of development and that's going to be important for the future of Alaska and the United States.
Monica Trauzzi: And one of the options that Interior has is to list the species as threatened. And that may be more of a feasible route for this administration, particularly because at the State of the Union address the president said that he was calling for the increased expansion of domestic oil and gas drilling. And considering the link, this might be something that they think of when listing the species. Does a threatened listing go far enough? Is that something that would be pleasing to a group such as yours?
Margaret Williams: Yes. Right now, when a species is listed as threatened, all of the same protections that apply to an endangered species are given to a threatened species unless, at the time of the listing as threatened, the Fish and Wildlife Service issues certain exceptions. And that's another thing that possibly could happen and we just don't know, so we're waiting for the decision to come out. But right now the threatened species are protected almost the same as endangered species.
Monica Trauzzi: And final question here. If this case involved in any other animal but the polar bear, do you think that the response would be the same, that there would be as much attention? Or is there this sort of love of this particular creature across the United States that makes it that much more impactful?
Margaret Williams: Well, it's hard to say. I mean if it was an ice worm, you know, probably that wouldn't galvanize the public as much as the polar bear has. And certainly the polar bear is a charismatic species and is used in so many other public campaigns. Young children can relate to polar bears and it's something we care about. But it really is the symbol of the Arctic and I think that's one of the benefits of this listing, no matter what happens, the fact that people are paying attention to what's happening in the Arctic. And the Arctic truly is a place that is affecting the planet and what happens in the Arctic could affect the rest of the world. The Arctic is changing faster and more severely than any other place in the world. So the polar bear is a symbol for that and it's great that it's caught the public's attention.
Monica Trauzzi: All right, we'll end it right there. Thanks for coming on the show.
Margaret Williams: Thank you very much.
Monica Trauzzi: This is OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Thanks for watching.
[End of Audio]
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