The administration of US President Barack Obama, which promised a sharp break from the previous administration on global warming, declared on Friday it would stick with the previous government’s stand against expanding protection for polar bears, ruling out an approach that would have opened a broad new attack on climate change.
To the dismay of environmentalists, US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar refused to rescind a rule from the administration of former US president George W. Bush that says actions that threaten the polar bear’s survival cannot be considered when safeguarding the iconic mammal if they occur outside the bear’s Arctic home.
The rule was aimed at heading off the possibility that the bear’s survival could be cited by opponents of power plants and other facilities that produce carbon dioxide, a leading pollutant blamed for global warming.
The Endangered Species Act requires that a threatened or endangered species must have its habitat protected.
Environmentalists say that in the case of the polar bear, the biggest threat comes from pollution — mainly carbon dioxide from faraway power plants, factories and cars — that is warming the Earth and melting Arctic sea ice.
Salazar said global warming was “the single greatest threat” to the bear’s survival, but that he did not believe the federal law that protects animals, plants and fish should be used to address climate change.
“The Endangered Species Act is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue, and that is the issue of global warming,” said Salazar, echoing much the same view of his Republican predecessor, Dirk Kempthorne, who had declared the polar bear officially threatened and in need of protection under the federal species law.
Kempthorne at the same time issued the “special rule” that limited the scope of the bear’s protection to actions within its Arctic home.
The iconic polar bear — some 25,000 of the mammals can be found across the Arctic region from Alaska to Greenland — has become a symbol of the potential ravages of climate change.
Scientists say while the bear population has more than doubled since the 1960s, as many as 15,000 could be lost in the coming decades because of the loss of Arctic sea ice, a key element of its habitat.
Environmentalists and some members of Congress had strongly urged Salazar to rescind the regulation, arguing the bear is not being given the full protection required under the species law.
Others, including most of the business community, argue that making the bear a reason for curtailing greenhouse gases thousands of kilometers from its home would cause economic chaos.
Reaction to Salazar’s decision on Friday was sharply divided.
Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin hailed the decision as a “clear victory for Alaska” because it removes the link between bear protection and climate change and should help North Slope oil and gas development.
Both of Alaska’s senators and its only House member also praised the decision and rejected claims the bear won’t be protected.
Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Environment Committee, who does not believe in global warming, applauded Salazar “for making the right call and applying a commonsense approach to the Endangered Species Act” and climate.
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