Obama Sides with Bush on Polar Bears and Climate

The Obama administration announced today that it is embracing a last-minute "midnight rule" created by President Bush that eviscerates protections for the imperiled polar bear.

This rule, celebrated by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and now adopted by Obama, bars the government from using the polar bear's protected status to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as an extinction threat if those emissions originate outside the animal's Arctic habitat.  It is known as the "4(d) rule" after the section of the Endangered Species Act that it amends.

However, as the official listing of the polar bear acknowledged, it is exactly those remote emissions -- and the climate change they cause -- that are destroying the polar bear's sea-ice habitat, driving the creatures into extinction. The rule not only violates the intent of the Endangered Species Act, environmentalists have argued, but also dooms the polar bear as a wild species.

In making the announcement, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar promised continued, vigorous action to rescue the polar bear. But he said the Bush rule made sense, as the Obama administration intends to use different methods of combating global warming.

"We must do all we can to help the polar bear recover, recognizing that the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change," Salazar said. "However, the Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation's carbon emissions."

This was the same argument the Bush administration employed, asserting that it would be wrong to use the Endangered Species Act as a "back door" method of regulating greenhouse gas pollution. But environmentalists have argued that the broad intent of the Endangered Species Act  unequivocally requires a response to all human-caused extinction threats, including global warming.  They've advocated that the powerful law should be viewed as a valuable tool and opportunity to tackle the climate crisis.

Congress passed legislation giving President Obama authority to overturn this and other Bush midnight rules with the stroke of a pen -- authority that expires tomorrow, May 9. 8 senators (including both California senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer), 41 congressman, 130 conservation groups, and more than 1300 scientists wrote the president, urging him to overturn the special polar bear rule.

But Salazar had been telegraphing for months that the rule would likely be left in place, a move he said today would  "avoid uncertainty and confusion about the management of the species."

Last week, environmentalists celebrated the administration's decision to rescind another Bush midnight rule, restoring the requirement that federal agencies consult with scientists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries services before undertaking projects that might have an impact on endangered or threatened species.

Now activist groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, which led the effort to secure protections for polar bears, are decrying today's decision. "For Salazar to adopt Bush's polar bear extinction plan is confirming the worst fears of his tenure as Secretary of Interior," said Noah Greenwald, biodiversity program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.  "Secretary Salazar would apparently prefer to please Sarah Palin than protect polar bears."

A coalition of environmental groups has already gone to court to overturn the Bush adminstration's "4(d) rule" as a violation of the Endangered Species Act -- a legal battle that will continue, according to Greenwald, who asserts that greenhouse gases should be treated like any other pollutant that can harm an endangered species.

Several groups have joined the government's side in the lawsuit, which means the Obama administration will have on its side Sarah Palin, the oil industry, and numerous trade associations representing major greenhouse gas emitters.

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Image credit: NOAA