In a cynical act of administrative jujitsu yesterday, Bush and Cheney rewrote the
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT.
The Act is now known as the
ENDANGERING SPECIES ACT.
In a performance of unmatched chutzpah, the Administration yesterday both declared the Polar Bear a threatened species, and explicitly ruled that actions that threaten the polar bear can continue, AND AUTHORIZES ACTIONS THAT INCREASE THE THREAT THROUGHOUT THEIR ARCTIC HABITAT..
In announcing the listing of the Polar Bear as threatened, Sec. Kempthorne said this
"Listing the polar bear as threatened can reduce avoidable losses of polar bears. But it should not open the door to use of the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources."
That's right. The Polar Bear is threatened by global warming, but no action can be taken to reduce the cause of the threat: manmade global warming pollution.
So not only has the Polar Bear not been protected by its listing as a Threatened Species, the Endangered Species Act itself has been endangered. The Secretary issued the equivalent of "an administrative signing statement" that orders the agency to not impose requirements that are oh-so inconvenient to the Bush-Cheney administration, a subsidiary of the oil and gas industry.
A sad day for environmental law.
And the loss of the Arctic environment should make everyone scared. Very scared.