Polar bear declared threatened

The polar bear, whose summertime Arctic hunting grounds have been greatly reduced by a warming climate, will be placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said Wednesday.

But the long-delayed decision to list the bear as a threatened species may prove less of an impediment to oil and gas industries along the Alaska coast than many environmentalists had hoped. Kempthorne also made it clear it would be "wholly inappropriate" to use the listing as a tool to reduce greenhouse gases, as environmentalists had intended to do.

While giving the bear a few new protections — hunters may no longer import hides or other trophies from bears killed in Canada, for instance — the Interior Department added stipulations, seldom used under the act, that will allow oil and gas exploration and development to proceed in areas where the bears live, as long as the companies continue to comply with existing restrictions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Kempthorne said the decision was driven by overwhelming scientific evidence that "sea ice is vital to polar bears' survival," and all available scientific models show that the rapid loss of ice will continue.

The bears use sea ice as a platform to hunt seals and as a pathway to the Arctic coasts where they den. The models reflect varying assumptions about how fast the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will increase.

Kempthorne, who earlier in his political life was a strong opponent of the current Endangered Species Act, said, "This has been a difficult decision. But in light of the scientific record and the restraints of the inflexible law that guides me," he made "the only decision I could make."

Recovery plan

Under the law, the federal government is now required to draft a recovery plan for the species, which entails assessing the population and its habitat. The ruling also compels federal agencies to consult with the Interior Department when considering decisions that could further imperil the polar bears.

A species is declared "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act if it is found to be at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable future.

U.S. Rep Jay Insleee, D-Wash., called the listing "a fraud" because the Bush administration doesn't intend to do anything to address climate change. He and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., have sponsored a bill that would direct a federal study of the impact of climate change on Alaska waters and would order the Interior Department to set aside critical-habitat areas for the bears.

"The administration effectively decided to make a listing, but said it wouldn't make a difference in government action," Inslee said. "That's not a listing, it's a cop-out."

The Center for Biological Diversity, along with Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed suit in 2005 to force a listing of the polar bear. The center has been explicit about its hopes to use this and the earlier listing of two species of coral threatened by warming seas as a legal cudgel to attack proposed coal-fired power plants or other new sources of carbon-dioxide emissions.

No obligation

But in both cases, the Bush administration has said it had no obligation to address or try to mitigate the cause of the species' decline — warming waters, in the case of the coral, or melting sea ice, in the case of the bears — or the greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, trucks, refineries, factories and power plants that contribute to both conditions.

On Wednesday, Kempthorne ruled out that possibility, saying, "When the Endangered Species Act was adopted in 1973, I don't think terms like 'climate change' were part of our vernacular."

Barton Thompson Jr., a law professor and director of the Woods Institute of the Environment at Stanford University, said the decision reflects the administration's view that "there is no way, if your factory emits a greenhouse gas, that we can say there is a causal connection between that emission and an iceberg melting somewhere and a polar bear falling into the ocean."

Vehement disagreement

Few natural-resource decisions have been as closely watched or been the subject of such vehement disagreement within the Bush administration as this one, according to officials in the Interior Department and others familiar with the process. After the department missed a series of deadlines, a federal judge ruled two weeks ago that the decision had to be made by today.

The provision of the act that the Interior Department is using to lighten the regulatory burden that the listing imposes on the oil and gas industry — known as a 4(d) rule — was designed to permit flexibility in the management of threatened species.

Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the listing decision was an acknowledgment of "global warming's urgency" but would have little practical impact on protecting polar bears.

"The administration acknowledges the bear is in need of intensive care," Siegel said. "The listing lets the bear into the hospital, but then the 4(d) rule says the bear's insurance doesn't cover the necessary treatments."

There are more than 25,000 bears in the Arctic, 15,500 of which roam within Canada's territory. A study issued last month by a Canadian group said that four of 13 bear populations would most likely decline by more than 30 percent in the next 36 years, while the others would remain stable.

Material from The Associated Press and McClatchy Newspapers is included in this report.