WASHINGTON (AP) - Put at risk by global warming, the polar bear is getting a life line as the government officially has declared it a threatened species in need of increased protection. But another round of legal battles surrounding the majestic animal may be just beginning.
The Interior Department put the bear under the protective umbrella of the Endangered Species Act on Wednesday, concluding what biologists have been saying for years: the bear is on the way to extinction because of the rapid disappearance of the Arctic sea ice upon which it depends.
Scientists predict sea ice melting will continue and even accelerate as a result of global warming.
"This in my judgment makes the polar bear a threatened species, one likely to become in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future," said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, punctuating his point with an array of slides, charts and maps showing the changing ice flows of the Arctic.
But Kempthorne also said that he did not view the increased protection of the bear afforded by the Endangered Species Act as a back door to regulate greenhouse gases coming from power plants, automobiles and industrial sources.
"That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA law," declared Kempthorne as he outlined a series of administrative and other actions he would take to protect anything like that from happening.
The restrictions, including one that would provide the bear no more protection from oil drilling in Arctic waters than it now has under another federal law, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, prompted environmentalists and some members of Congress to questions whether the bear will get any more protection at all.
"They're trying to make this a threatened listing in name only with no change in today's impacts and that's not going to fly," said Jamie Rappaport Clark of Defenders of Wildlife and a former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Clinton administration.
Three environmental groups whose lawsuit forced the Interior Department to make a decision on the bear's status, indicated they are preparing to go to court again to challenge some of the provisions Kempthorne outlined.
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