polar bear

Only Two Days to Help Save the Polar Bear

On March 11, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law a bill giving Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar the authority -- until May 9 -- to rescind with the stroke of a pen two rules passed in the final days of the Bush administration that weaken the Endangered Species Act. One exempts thousands of federal activities from review by expert scientists, and the other is a special rule for the polar bear that expressly bans federal agencies from examining the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the polar bear -- despite the fact that the number one threat to the bear's survival is melting of its sea-ice habitat caused by global warming.

In positive news, on April 28 Secretary Salazar made good on President Obama's pledge to restore science to government decision-making by overturning the regulation that exempted thousands of damaging activities from review under the Endangered Species Act, ensuring that top scientists will be involved in reviewing federal actions that could harm imperiled plants and animals.

But Salazar’s task of restoring full protections under the Act is only halfway finished -- he has not yet revoked the special polar bear rule. The polar bear’s Arctic sea ice habitat is rapidly melting away. If Bush’s 11th-hour special rule is not struck down, the polar bear is likely to be the first large mammal to go extinct due to global warming in the United States.

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