( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST
The Bush Administration’s Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, was a no-show at last Wednesday’s Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee hearing, chaired by Barbara Boxer, on the listing of the polar bear as an endangered species.
“This listing is months overdue, in violation of the Endangered Species Act,” the California Democrat said at the hearing of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee.
The deadline for a decision was Jan. 9. Conservation groups petitioned to list polar bears as threatened more than three years ago because their habitat, sea ice, is shrinking from global warming.
In a letter to Boxer, Kempthorne said he “respectfully” declined her invitation to appear at the hearing, since he is a named defendant in a lawsuit over the polar bear listing filed by an environmental group.
The hearing did receive testimony from witnesses on climate change projections, emissions, and the potential for oil spills to further impact the polar bear’s ability to survive amidst declining sea ice due to warming.
Critics to listing the polar bear as an endangered species include the Interior Department, after its subsidiary, the Fish and Wildlife Service, requested it be added on January 7, 2008. The Interior Department raised the concern that the Fish and Wildlife Service does not have the resources to handle the duties that would arise with the change in designation. Other critics have raised a more direct concern that listing the polar bear would limit oil and gas exploration in the Arctic…
Rest of the article, links and pictures at THE ENVIRONMENTALIST
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Last week it was a lawsuit was filed against the EPA for refusing to make a decision on emission standards, now the polar bear gets to drown while the Interior Department fiddles…
I think he was a box turtle. I live in a wooded rural area and they always get squished trying to cross the road, so I try and drive slowly so I can spot them and stop to move them off to the side of the road. He was fairly pissed off at me.
that’s cool. Docudharma is on the The Environmentalist blog list!!!!
They should be. And we should just hang them out to dry. What a bunch of gutless cowards. Just like their masters.