U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears
Posted on 04/03/2008 7:47:12 AM PDT by EPW Comm Team
Polar Bears Potential ESA Listing Called ‘Regulatory Monster’
For the second time in the past three months, the EPW Committee conducted a hearing on the decision to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The potential listing of the polar bear under ESA is being promoted by many activists as a way to save the bear. Today’s hearing also focused on the Department of the Interior’s failure to meet its court-ordered and statutory deadlines for making a listing decision and the subsequent lawsuit brought by environmental groups.
FACT: Worldwide polar bear population numbers are at or near all-time highs, especially in comparison to 40-50 years ago. A majority of populations are considered stable and some are increasing. Listing polar bears under ESA will alter the original intent of ESA and may create “a regulatory monster of unprecedented proportions.”
William P. Horn, former Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks in 1985-1988 (responsible for the ESA program) and experience serving on the Board of Environmental Sciences and Toxicology of the National Academy of Sciences, testified today:
“It would be a mistake to list the presently healthy and sustainable polar bear populations as a threatened species under the ESA. Such action will produce a variety of adverse consequences including (1) creating an ESA listing precedent that opens Pandora’s Box in the form of other unwarranted listings that will diminish resources available for bona fide wildlife conservation and recovery efforts, (2) setting the stage for new rounds of litigation and judicial activism to turn the ESA into a regulatory monster of unprecedented proportions, and (3) harming existing successful polar bear conservation and management programs A decision to list a presently healthy species – exhibiting no present trajectory toward endangerment − based on large scale hemispheric models forecasting problems 50 years in the future is a radical departure from the language of the ESA. It pushes the decision horizon far into the genuinely unseeable future, is predicated on uncertain intervening events where it is difficult if not impossible to tie those events directly to specific on-the-ground situations, and will likely precipitate the subsequent listing of an array of otherwise healthy species which might also be forecast to face problems a half century or more from now. By stretching the ESA and encompassing under its umbrella an unknown number of such species, finite monetary and staff resources will be further divided and resources diminished and diverted from conservation and recovery of species facing bona fide imminent threats and where FWS is actually capable of conserving such species. That is bad conservation strategy and bad policy.”
Horn also cautioned that listing polar bears under ESA will open the door to massive litigation.
“The predicate of the listing is that greenhouse gas emissions are triggering melting of the Arctic Sea ice habitat upon which the polar bears depend. Yet ESA provides – and FWS possesses − no authority or expertise to regulate such emissions on a national, hemispheric, or global basis. Clearly, FWS cannot tell the governments of China or India to stop building new coal fired power plants. A polar bear listing will also trigger a sequence of events in which FWS is compelled to expand the scope of its regulatory activities into realms (e.g., air emissions) where it cannot be effective as a matter of fact or law. The agency will be pressed well beyond its expertise and resources to become the uberregulator of our nation’s greenhouse gas emitting electrical and transportation systems. That will detract from focus on areas and species where FWS can be effective and conserve genuinely at-risk species.”
The headline-grabbing missed statutory deadline is not an unprecedented occurrence, nor is it unique to the Bush Administration. Statutory and court-ordered deadlines should be met but it is not the first time that the Fish and Wildlife Service has missed one of these deadlines. For example, in July 1998, the Clinton Administration proposed to list the Canadian Lynx as threatened under ESA. The final rule was published in March 2000—exceeding the statutory one-year deadline by more than 250 days. From 1998-2000, the Clinton Administration reportedly had a 10% success rate in getting listing decisions made within the one-year statutory window.
The decision is overdue by 90 days, and the two Democrats who showed up at the EPW hearing took the opportunity to express outrage over the delay. It is very telling that the Democrats chose this missed deadline over which to get so upset. The fact that the EPW Committee has had two hearings on a single listing decision reinforces the point that the listing of the polar bear is not about protecting the bear, but about using the ESA to achieve global warming policy that special interest groups can not otherwise achieve through the legislative process.
To read complete post go to: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Facts&ContentRecord_id=10d3eec0-802a-23ad-4979-69c5597f9f85
Excuse my ignorance, but are there a lot of “Polar Bear” hunters/poachers out there? I know people hunt bears, but is there a lot of “human on polar bear violence” ? If not, then really what is the purpose of putting them on the Endangered Species list?
Polar bears are not native to the US. We have no role in regulating animals in foreign lands.
They changed colors - from Red to Green.
Add in a bunch of youngsters raised in Public indoctrination centers school and you have a better picture of what's up.
Alaska has Polar Bears
Then that would just make it a state issue.
Listing them will end 100% of the money that pays to protect them!
Bears in Alaska: Brown, black and polar bears have the state covered
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
New!!: Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH
The Great Global Warming Swindle Video - back on the net!! (click here)
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
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