Legal News

Polar Bear Gets ?Endangered? Listing, But Win Limited for Green Groups

By Ashby Jones

It’s not exactly in our jurisdiction, but we did blog last week on a federal-court ruling that allowed the Interior Department some extra time to decide whether the polar bear should be placed on the endangered species list, so we feel duty-bound to come back with the news of the department’s decision. (Plus, we really like the picture).

The news: the polar bear will be placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, a decision announced yesterday by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. Here are stories from the NYT and WaPo.

Environmental groups had hoped to use the listing as a tool to make further greenhouse-gas reducing changes. But Kempthorne ruled that out yesterday, ensuring only a partial win for organizations like Greenpeace and the National Resources Defense Council. Explains the NYT: the Bush administration had long argued that a listing wouldn’t require it to “mitigate the cause of the species’ decline.” Kempthorne agreed with this position, stating yesterday, according to the Times, that “when the Endangered Species Act was adopted in 1973, I don’t think terms like ‘climate change’ were part of our vernacular.”

The editorial board at the Journal applauded Kempthorne’s restraint. “Mr. Kempthorne was careful to sever the environmentalists’ preposterous chain of assumptions: That ice is melting is not proof that global warming is to blame,” it wrote. “If Congress wants to enact global-warming legislation, then so be it – but the costs and benefits should be argued in the open. This fly-by-night policy making is not only unscientific. It’s undemocratic.”

Photo: from First People Web site

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 15, 2008 (boomark / email).