ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A back-door effort to force federal action on global warming has received a boost in federal court.
U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland, Calif., late Monday ordered the Bush administration to decide by May 15 whether polar bears should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because of their Arctic sea ice habitat has shrunk.
A listing would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan for polar bears. The agency has given no indication how widespread that plan might be, but environmental groups hope it would include concrete steps to curb greenhouse gases that contribute to Arctic warming.
The Endangered Species Act contains broad provisions to require government agencies to eliminate or lessen threats to threatened species, said Kassie Siegel, climate program director of the Center for Biological Diversity, and the No. 1 threat to polar bears is greenhouse gas emissions.
“Federal agencies have to ensure that their actions don’t jeopardize the continued existence of any listed species or adversely modify its critical habitat,” she said.
Siegel, the lead author on the listing petition, said federal agencies would have the obligation to review large sources of greenhouse gas emissions, consider their cumulative effect and take steps to reduce them to make sure they do not kill off polar bears.
She rejects opponents’ notions that a listing will ruin the U.S. economy or that greenhouse gases are beyond the scope of environmental regulators.
“Greenhouse gases aren’t fundamentally different from pesticides or anything that poisons our land and water to such a degree that it harms plants and animals,” she said.
A polar bear decision was due Jan. 9. Judge Wilken rejected a government request for further delay until June 30.
“Defendants have been in violation of the law requiring them to publish the listing determination for nearly 120 days,” Wilken wrote. “Other than the general complexity of finalizing the rule, Defendants offer no specific facts that would justify the delay, much less further delay.”
A spokesman for the Interior Department said Tuesday the decision was being reviewed.
“We will evaluate the legal options and will decide the appropriate course of action,” said Shane Wolfe in an e-mail statement.
Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council blamed the delay on Bush administration politics — an aversion to any animal listing and a nod to petroleum producers — because climate and wildlife science support the listing.
“The only factor that the Fish and Wildlife Service can take into account is science,” Wetzler said. “If the science says it’s endangered, it must be listed.”
A delay, he said, likely has been motivated by an administration desire to see offshore lease sales continue as far as possible without additional polar bear protections. The Minerals Management Service, like the Fish and Wildlife Service, a branch of the Interior Department, in February auctioned off nearly 4,310 square miles of ocean bottom in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast and is transferring leases to petroleum companies.
The Chukchi Sea is home to one of two U.S. polar bear populations. The other is in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s north coast.
Polar bears rely on sea ice for hunting ringed seals and other marine mammals. In recent years, summer sea ice has receded far beyond the relatively shallow, biologically rich waters of the outer continental shelf, giving polar bears less time in prime feeding areas and a longer swim if they leave ice for the mainland in the fall.
Opponents say a listing is premature because wildlife biologists have presented no conclusive evidence that Alaska polar bear populations have dropped. They also say climate models predicting additional ice loss are unreliable and that not all melting can be pinned on human causes.
Proponents counter that northern marine mammals are notoriously difficult to count, especially in the Chukchi populations shared with Russia, and that there are preliminary signs that polar bears are in trouble.
A 2006 study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that far fewer Beaufort Sea polar bears cubs were surviving and that adult males weighed less and had smaller skulls than those captured and measured two decades previously — trends similar to observations in Canada’s western Hudson Bay before a population drop.
The underlying threat, however, remains the shocking loss of summer sea ice. Ice last year shrunk to a record low, about 1.65 million square miles, nearly 40 percent less than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2006 proposed listing polar bears as threatened. After public comment and additional research, the final decision was due in January.
However, Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall said a delay was needed to make sure a decision was made in a form easily understood. He promised a decision within a month.
That deadline also passed, and in March, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace sued.
Assistant Interior Secretary Lyle Laverty two weeks ago said the department needed until June 30 to complete a legal and policy review.
Wilken flatly rejected that. Allowing more time would violate congressional intent that time was of the essence in listing threatened species, Wilken wrote.
She also rejected a 30-day waiting period if polar bears are listed. An immediate listing could effect a proposed rule exempting oil industry operations in the Chukchi Sea from prohibitions against incidental take of polar bears, she wrote.
On the Web
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska: alaska.fws.gov
Center for Biological Diversity: www.biologicaldiversity.org
Natural Resources Defense Council: www.nrdc.org
Greenpeace USA: www.greenpeace.org/usa
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