Obama WH Keeps Bush WH Rule on Polar Bears
EmailABC News’ Yunji de Nies reports: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is keeping a Bush administration rule to limit polar bear protections from global warming. After the polar bear was added to the protected species list under the Endangered Species Act last May, the Bush administration limited its protection, saying only action within the Arctic region could be considered a threat to the bear population. The bear population’s greatest threat to habitat loss is due to shrinking sea ice, caused by global warming. Environmentalists argue that all federal actions that contribute to climate change should be included in the protections. President George W. Bush disagreed and apparently, so does President Barrack Obama. "The ESA is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue, and that’s the issue of global warming," Secretary Salazar said. He went on to say that the administration will be pursuing comprehensive climate change and energy legislation to deal directly with global warming and that, "Both President Obama and I are committed to doing everything we can to protect the polar bear and it’s habitat." The administration does not believe that the ESA was written to address global warming, and contends that it is not sure that legally it could be used to regulate climate change to protect polar bears. "I think it would be very difficult for our scientists doing the evaluations of a cement plant in Georgia or Florida and it’s impact that it’s gonna have on the polar bear habitat. I just don’t think the ESA was ever set up organizationally with that contemplation in mind," Salazar said. Salazar’s chief of staff, Tom Strickland, said that ESA will still protect the polar bear, for example from the direct encroachment of human activity. Rowan Gould, acting Director for the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also pointed to $7.4 million in the President’s FY2010 budget to that will go toward polar bear conservation. Environmentalists say they were not entirely surprised by the decision, but are extremely disappointed. "This is yet another decision by the Department of Interior that undermines protection for our endangered animals," said Andrew Wetzler, Director of Natural Resources Defense Council’s Wildlife Conservation Program, "The impact of global warming are already being felt in the arctic, and it poses a grave threat to polar bears and the entire ecosystem. We need to use every tool at our disposal, including the Endangered Species Act." The NRDC has been suing to overturn the rule since was first enacted and says they will continue with their lawsuit. –Yunji de Nies UPDATE: The administration’s decision drew a quick, partisan response. In a statement, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, criticized the move. "I disagree with the Department of Interior’s decision to limit the tools we have available under the Endangered Species Act to save the polar bear from extinction. Monitoring the situation will not tell us more than we know now – that the polar bear is threatened and we need to act.” On the other side, Congressman Doc Hastings (R-WA), House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member wrote: "I applaud Secretary Salazar for making a common sense decision that will ensure more jobs are not lost due to excessive regulations of greenhouse gases by the government. This decision will help protect crucial projects needed to stimulate our economy from becoming the target of frivolous lawsuits by environmental groups designed to stop economic development in our country." And finally, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Twitter tweeted @AKGovSarahPalin "I’m pleased Interior Sec. Salazar made ESA decision (re: polar bears) based on facts, sound science."
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So?
What about the Panda in the National Zoo?
Posted by: two cats | May 8, 2009, 2:24 pm 2:24 pm
I thought the term “global warming” was to be discontinued and that the new name to be used by everyone is “Wacky Weather.”
In reality, last year’s polar ice caps and glaciers expanded throughout the world. The sea ice today is equivalent to the sea ice first measured by satellite in 1979 (the year record keeping began).
This information is from the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
The “endangered” polar bear population is at record high levels. Experts say the research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if “global warming” threatened the polar bear population was so flawed it should not be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species at all.
As much as I love polar bears, it is time to remove them completely from the endangered species list. We need to stop trying to play God.
Posted by: Mongo | May 8, 2009, 2:35 pm 2:35 pm
Bears always suffer in a Bull Market.
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | May 8, 2009, 2:52 pm 2:52 pm
Fix global warming and you’ll ‘save the bears’. The EPA is not the agency to do that. This is the right decision, not ideological. This is the kind of change voters asked for.
Posted by: thebob.bob | May 8, 2009, 2:53 pm 2:53 pm
Mongo: “I thought the term “global warming” was to be discontinued and that the new name to be used by everyone is “Wacky Weather.”
The name used by scientists – the full time folks who actually stick to the facts – is climate change, and it has been climate change for decades (that’s why it’s the IPCC, formed in 1988, not the IPGW). The rest is just political jockeying on both sides.
Posted by: jhw539 | May 8, 2009, 2:55 pm 2:55 pm
Summer’s coming Mongo, talking points says that when temperatures are warming, use the term Global Warming. It’s that whole propaganda thing.
Posted by: Truth Jock | May 8, 2009, 3:03 pm 3:03 pm
I agree with this move. Climate change is too big and complex an issue to even think of using the crude endangered species laws to address it. Any single species ultimately is a lower priority than the kind of societal costs that climate change and/or the measures to address it will have.
Posted by: jhw539 | May 8, 2009, 3:04 pm 3:04 pm
Can’t they just hibernate an extra month or something — like ‘sleep in’.
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | May 8, 2009, 3:25 pm 3:25 pm
I blame Bush.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | May 8, 2009, 4:04 pm 4:04 pm
It’s just one more thing he inherited from Bush anyway.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | May 8, 2009, 4:21 pm 4:21 pm
how can polar bears be theatened when they have already survived 4 previous warming periods?
Posted by: J House | May 8, 2009, 4:24 pm 4:24 pm
POTUS doesn’t even like white bears.
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | May 8, 2009, 4:34 pm 4:34 pm
It’s all about the Science, until you don’t like what the Science says. Since Obama has spoken, the debate is over.
Posted by: TempusFugit | May 8, 2009, 4:44 pm 4:44 pm
Undoubtedly, an environmental law specific to Alaska on preventing polar bear extinction would have required more envionmentalmental concessions than the more general legislations. Maybe Big Oil has influenced both administrations, given that fossil fuel exploitation destroys habitats and pipeline transfers have melted the permafrost.
Posted by: kim | May 8, 2009, 4:47 pm 4:47 pm
Where do polar bears rank on the voter importance list?
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | May 8, 2009, 4:50 pm 4:50 pm
Bob,
you may want to try the MENSA site..
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | May 8, 2009, 4:53 pm 4:53 pm
When Sarah Palin calls something Obama does “based on facts, sound science” I get really suspicious.
Posted by: El_Pajaro | May 8, 2009, 9:22 pm 9:22 pm
Ashley Judd, where are you?
Posted by: Tia | May 8, 2009, 9:27 pm 9:27 pm
So, I asked a global warming believer recently whether he would doubt global warming was correct if it continued to get colder this year. He said, no, if it gets colder here it will be because its getting warmer elsewhere. So i modified it: if the entire world gets colder next year? He said, no, that would just be a fluke. Fair enough I said: what if it got colder for 2 years? Nope, wouldn’t stop believing. 5 years? Nope. 10? Nope. 20? Finally he got mad and said I was being ridiculous: there was no way he would stop believing in global warming, even if this entire century was colder than the last.
That takes an awful lot of faith… ask yourself the same question if you are a believer: at what point would you being doubting global warming?
We need a good name for the global warming religion and its believers.
Posted by: fuul | May 8, 2009, 9:43 pm 9:43 pm
If you want some actuall facts on global warming, You should read the Science and Public Policy Institute’s Monthly CO2 Report of March 2009, Volume 1, Issue 3. and Christopher Monckton’s testimony before Ed Markey’s committee, and his follow up letter. You may have to call Congress Markey’s office to find the testimony as I have been unable to find it on the committees web site. I would love to hear Jake Tappers thoughts on the Document, Moncktons testimony and his letter since he has a reputation of being independent.
Posted by: Philip V. | May 9, 2009, 1:04 am 1:04 am
The IPCC has been discredited. Every scientist who works on the report is included wether they agree or not, and even if they have asked to be taken off the report do to it’s erroneous findings. The summary for policymakers is done behind closed doors and not even written by the scientist who contribute to the report. In short the IPCC is a SHAM and it’s only agenda is to puport and foster hysteria and panic over “climate change” (HEY what happened to warming!?! Climate is supposed to change!!!) Cap and trade subsidises actual pollution, it doesn’t eliminate it! Carbon monoxide (exhaust) is not even covered by the so called CO2 emissions! Your taxing the wrong gas for Christ sake!(Restricting carbon dioxide which plants breathe and return air back into the enviroment, really!) And deindustrializaton sentences the 3rd world to perpetual poverty and no money for development that could be used for better housing, clean water, and services that we currently enjoy here in the States, that the non governmental organizations like the IPCC want to fine and regulate into abject poverty. And finally the Earth was ten to twenty degress warmer during the Mideval warm period. Remember the Vikings farming in Greenland. That is now mostly ice now. Can you explain just where the carbon emissions came to cause such cataclysmic warming with NO industrialization, or emissions to speak of short of limited fires for warmth and human and cow farts! It simply doesn’t add up. But the propaganda spewers continue to make you think that your car, air conditioner and children are a danger to the Earth, and that “carbon emitting” animals should be preserved. The hypocrisy knows no bounds! Either we all are a danger and must be “culled”, animals and humans, or somebody sure isn’t doing their homework and laughing all the way to the “carbon credit” bank. (Mr. Gore!)
Posted by: hmn | May 9, 2009, 1:35 pm 1:35 pm
Is there a non-profit that helps these animals.. can someone tell me what could immediately be done to help their plight??
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | May 9, 2009, 5:21 pm 5:21 pm
Even human diseases that cause human deaths are evaluated by their cost for research. Only a nut would want to save polar bears (if possible anyways) at a cost of a trillion dollars a head.
Posted by: Mike Mich | May 9, 2009, 6:48 pm 6:48 pm
BTW, fuul makes quite a post earlier that is worthy of looking at. “True science is not a religion, but true religion is a science” – me. I also like the post where Bush was blamed, I have to agree for once since this is a very smart decision. hehe
Posted by: Mike Mich | May 9, 2009, 6:52 pm 6:52 pm
Comparing important facts I have concluded the following.
1. This is a great excuse to keep people employed [like Gore]in nothing much while they are shaking down the government for taxpayer funding or producing si fi movies to show over and over again to scare children.
2. It Allows the EPA to dump billions of tax dollars down another rat hole they can feed off of.
3. Forget that polar ice on Mars was also melting and the data not only was flawed,fixed,and now is old,and polar ice is currently increasing while solar activity has slowed.
I like to think that for every polar bear that dies,hundreds of baby seals survive.
At the end of the day prepared properly polar bear tastes just like chicken and you can always blame Bush if you over cook it.
Posted by: gandv | May 10, 2009, 9:14 am 9:14 am
OK DontGet818OnMeNow – ask Sarah Palin, she’ll be happy to shoot them and will send you their paws if you like
Posted by: itsalluphl | June 1, 2009, 3:34 pm 3:34 pm
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Posted by: Burt Overman | December 8, 2011, 5:04 pm 5:04 pm