After delaying the decision for several months, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on May 14, 2008 accepted a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommendation to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), but said the listing would not be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to limit oil drilling in polar bear habitat.

Polar Bear Listing Also Protects Oil Companies
Environmentalists immediately criticized the announcement, saying that Kempthorne and the Bush administration were doing more to appease the oil industry than to protect polar bears.

“Allowing destructive energy development in polar bear habitat is akin to diagnosing someone with lung cancer and then handing them a lit cigarette,” said Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director, in a statement. “There is no environmentally sound way to drill in polar bear habitat. Drilling would inundate polar bear habitat with pipelines, well pads, boat traffic, ice-breaking vessels, and seismic blasting, not to mention the ever-present threat of oil spills.

“The Bush administration’s sham plan also proposes changes that could gut the Endangered Species Act and prevent it from ever being used to actually protect the polar bear or address global warming—which is precisely what is pushing the bear toward extinction," Pope added.

Melting Sea Ice Threatens Polar Bears
Kempthorne said melting sea ice had reduced the polar bear’s natural habitat, making a “threatened” listing imperative. He used a series of satellite images to illustrate the dramatic loss of sea ice between 1979 and 2007, and cited scientific predictions that September sea ice could show losses as high as 97 percent by the end of the century.

In announcing his decision to designate polar bears as a threatened species, Kempthorne also took steps to limit the impact of his decision, saying that his intention was “to protect the polar bear while limiting the unintended harm to the society and economy of the United States.” He also declared that the ESA should not be considered a means to control global warming.

“While the legal standards under the ESA compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting,” Kempthorne said. “Any real solution requires action by all major economies for it to be effective. That is why I am taking administrative and regulatory action to make certain the ESA isn’t abused to make global warming policies.”

New Rule Would Allow Oil Drilling in Polar Bear Habitat
Kempthorne announced he was using the authority of Section 4(d) of the ESA to establish a rule, effective immediately, that would permit any activity allowed under the stricter standards of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. He said the new rule would “ensure the protection of the bear while allowing us to continue to develop our natural resources in the arctic region in an environmentally sound way.”

“Listing the polar bear as threatened can reduce avoidable losses of polar bears. But it should not open the door to use of the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources,” Kempthorne said. “That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA law. The ESA is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy.”

“We don’t need to sacrifice polar bears and other wildlife just so Big Oil can add to their tens of billions in record profits,” Pope said. “America already has the technology and the will to embrace a clean energy economy that will end our dangerous dependence on oil, fight global warming, and leave wild, pristine places like the Arctic intact."