Decision greeted with angst, anger
By TOM KIZZIA
tkizzia@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(05/15/08 00:06:19)
Alaska industry and political leaders reacted with disappointment,
even vehemence, to the decision Wednesday to protect the polar bear as
"threatened," despite assurances from the Bush administration that the
listing would mean no new regulation in Alaska.
Industry officials worried that the listing decision would give
environmentalists a new tool for opposing development in the Arctic,
especially new offshore oil exploration and development. Politicians
attacked the science behind the decision as speculative.
"Reinterpreting the Endangered Species Act in this way is an
unequivocal victory for extreme environmentalists who want to block
all development in our state," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.
National conservative groups are already promising to sue over the
decision, predicting that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's effort
to rule out regulation of greenhouse gas emissions would be overturned
in court. One group, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the
barriers erected by Kempthorne "have all the strength of tissue
paper."
For their part, environmental groups responded more positively to the
"threatened species" listing, a goal they have sought for three years.
They, too, were talking about lawsuits, predicting Interior would be
forced to yield on the logic of regulating emissions.
"This is a huge victory for the polar bears. They're now protected,"
said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for
Biological Diversity, and lead author of the 2005 petition. "The
administration's attempts to make an exception for greenhouse gases
won't stand up in court. The law says what it says, not what the
administration wishes it says. The oil industry is probably smart
enough to know that."
Kempthorne, announcing his decision Wednesday, said no new regulation
of industry or subsistence hunting in Alaska would be necessary under
the Endangered Species Act. He said protections already given to the
polar bear under the Marine Mammal Protection Act are "more stringent"
than those under the ESA and would continue in place.
In an interview, Kempthorne said his approach "gave predictability to
the oil and gas industry."
Interior officials cited only one change: polar bear trophies could no
longer be im****ted from guided s****t hunts in Canada.
'PANDORA'S BOX'
Under the ESA, the federal government is required to develop a plan
for protecting critical habitat, write a recovery plan for the bears,
and consult about bear protection before approving federal permits.
All now appear to be sources of potential litigation, especially on
the issue of excluding greenhouse gas emissions.
The marine mammal act has governed industry activities in northern
Alaska for three decades, and the result has been only "negligible"
impacts on polar bears, federal biologists say.
But it's probably oversimplifying to say there will be no different
regulation of industry in Alaska as a result of Wednesday's decision,
said Scott Schliebe, a polar bear specialist with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in Alaska.
"It draws a brighter light of scrutiny to our management activities in
Alaska," Schliebe said. "We will take a closer look at the activities,
particularly the offshore activities."
Industry is not as worried about government scrutiny as it is about
environmental lawsuits and resulting costly delays, said Marilyn
Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association.
"The activities taking place in polar bear habitat are the ones that
will become targets," she said. The administration's effort to keep
the marine mammals act as the law affecting oil and gas is "very
helpful," she said, but the decision to list at all is disappointing.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, made the point more strongly, calling
the decision "grossly premature" because climate change models vary so
much. She said the decision "opens a Pandora's Box that the
administration will now be unable to close."
LEGAL CHALLENGES
Environmentalists were considering Wednesday how to approach future
legal challenges to the law, Siegel said.
She said to expect a challenge of the so-called 4(d) rule declaring
the marine mammal act would still govern human-bear interactions,
effective immediately. The ESA allows for such flexibility if the
threatened species is not harmed as a result. But the marine mammal
act has shortcomings, environmentalists say, including that it fails
to protect habitat.
"If the MMPA were adequate to protect the polar bear, we wouldn't be
in this situation," she said.
Siegel said she was glad she could move beyond the basic effort of
suing the government over science and listing the bear under the ESA.
In his statement, Kempthorne said he accepted the science behind the
decision as sound.
That job now falls to Reed Hopper, a lawyer with the conservative
property-rights firm Pacific Legal Foundation. Hopper said Wednesday
he would file a notice to sue over the decision, testing the
scientific arguments. He said polar bear numbers have increased in the
past few decades and they are already adequately protected under the
marine mammals act, as Kempthorne himself argued.
He dismissed Kempthorne's contention that the polar bear could be
listed for protection due to melting ice, but in a way that would have
no effect on oil and gas activity or distant emission sources.
"In our view, that's just wishful thinking," Hopper said.
|
