01 Mar 2008 Listing the Polar Bear Under the Endangered Species Act Because of Projected Global Warming Could Harm Bears and Humans Alike, by Peyton Knight and Amy Ridenour
Introduction and Summary
Few animals capture the imaginations of Americans quite like the polar bear. Just ask Coca-Cola, whose animated polar bear advertisement has become an annual holiday staple. Seemingly impervious to the brutal conditions of the Great White North, these mammoth bears exude an aura of cuddly invincibility.
But some environmental groups claim the polar bear is in danger of extinction due to what they believe is anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming. These groups have filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to list the bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, or ESA.
Listing the polar bear under the ESA because of projected future global warming would be an unfortunate mistake:
* Listing the polar bear could have adverse affects on bear conservation efforts.
* Global polar bear population levels presently are healthy.
* The anthropogenic global warming theory remains only a theory, and climate science is in its infancy. Even those who agree with the global warming theory disagree about the extent of its projected effects.
* Listing the polar bear as threatened because of estimated future global warming would most likely be extremely expensive to the U.S. economy.
* Listing the polar bear based on projected anthropogenic global warming can be expected to greatly expand federal regulatory powers under the ESA.
* Because of its great expense and controversial nature, federal policies regarding global warming should be made only by Congress with input from the Executive Branch, not by a presidential appointee charged with enforcing a 1973 law written for other purposes.
The Present State of the Polar Bear
Polar bears are the largest members of the bear family and reside exclusively on the Arctic ice cap in the Northern Hemisphere.1 Male bears can grow to be as large as nine feet from nose to tail and weigh upwards of 1,700 pounds.2 Polar bears generally live and hunt alone, relying primarily on such food sources as ringed seals, walrus, and beluga whales.3 They are exceptional swimmers, capable of swimming up to 40 miles without rest at a relatively brisk speed of four miles per hour.4
In the 1960s and early 1970s, unregulated sport hunting was deemed a threat to the polar bear’s continued existence. In the mid-1960s the total polar bear population hovered at roughly 10,000.5 To help bolster the bear’s numbers, in 1972 Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibited polar bear hunting in Alaska, with the exception of hunting performed by natives for subsistence purposes.6 The following year, the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway and the then-U.S.S.R. signed the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, in which the nations agreed to prohibit the unregulated sport hunting of polar bears and outlaw the practice of hunting polar bears from aircraft and icebreakers.7
Over the last 40+ years, the polar bear population has more than doubled. Estimates range from 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide. In fact, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain, polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.”8 This dramatic increase in population is noteworthy, as polar bears have one of the slowest reproductive rates of any mammal.9
Even the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an environmental group that advocates listing the bear under the Endangered Species Act, notes that there are “at least 22,000 polar bears worldwide” and “the general status of polar bears is currently stable.”10 According to a WWF study, there are “20 relatively distinct” polar bear populations. Citing data from the World Conservation Union’s Polar Bear Specialist Group, WWF reports that of these 20 populations, only two are thought to be decreasing, ten are stable, two are increasing, and six are of unknown status.11 The same data shows there to be anywhere from 21,580 to more than 24,980 polar bears worldwide. Of this global population, a total of 3,600 bears from two populations are thought to be decreasing.
Dr. Mitchell Taylor, polar bear biologist for the Canadian province of Nunavut’s Department of the Environment, has said there is no cause for alarm:
Climate change is having an effect on the West Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.
It is noteworthy that the neighboring population of southern Hudson Bay does not appear to have declined, and another southern population (Davis Strait) may actually be over-abundant.
I understand that people who do not live in the north generally have difficulty grasping the concept of too many polar bears in an area. People who live here have a pretty good grasp of what that is like to have too many polar bears around.
This complexity is why so many people find the truth less entertaining than a good story.12
A hearty species, polar bears have displayed past resilience and adaptability, having survived during periods warmer than the current era.13
Environmental Activists Push to List the Polar Bear – And (Most Likely) Why
In February 2005 the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an environmental organization, petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the bear under the Endangered Species Act as a “threatened” species. Several months later, two more environmental organizations, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), joined CBD in its petition.
Why the push to list an animal whose population is healthy?
Center for Biological Diversity Senior Counsel William Snape may have provided a hint to the answer in the opening line of his testimony on the subject to the U.S. Department of the Interior:
Since February 2005, when the Center for Biological Diversity first petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list and protect the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act, there has been a growing political consensus in this country that global warming is a monumental environmental crisis and that humans can, indeed must, take action to combat it.14
What environmental groups have been unsuccessful in accomplishing through the front door, they appear to be hoping to usher in through the back – namely, restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions similar to those mandated in the U.N.’s Kyoto global warming treaty, which the U.S. Senate has not ratified.
Indeed, the ESA is a promising method for getting global warming regulations through the back door. Section 9 of the Endangered Species Act makes it unlawful to “take” any endangered species on public or private land. In Section 3, the Act defines “take” as “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect.” In 1975, the U.S. Interior Department took the word “harm” in that definition and broadly expanded its meaning:
An act or omission which actually injures or kills wildlife, including acts which annoy it to such an extent as to significantly disrupt essential behavioral patterns, which include, but are not limited to, breeding, feeding, or sheltering; significant environmental modification or degradation which has such effects is included within the meaning of “harm.”15
This definition gives regulators wide latitude in deciding which actions can be deemed “harmful” to a listed species or its habitat. It also provides ample fodder for environmentalist lawsuits to prevent certain public or private activities. Thus, in the opinion of federal regulators, should anthropogenic global warming be deemed harmful to the polar bear or its habitat under the ESA, the mere act of emitting greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide, could be heavily regulated, or in some instances, outlawed entirely.
A recent action by the NRDC provides more evidence that some environmental groups are looking at the possibility of using the ESA to promote global warming-related legal restrictions on human actions and the U.S. economy. The NRDC is advocating ESA protections for another abundant species due to global warming, the Yellowstone grizzly bear. The Yellowstone grizzly was recently removed from the federal endangered species list and deemed a success story by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. However, the NRDC claims global warming is an immediate threat to the Yellowstone grizzly’s habitat, and thus, they argue, the bear should remain on the ESA list.16
The Global Warming Theory is Not a Sound Basis for Endangered Species Policy
Under the terms of the Endangered Species Act, a species qualifies for “threatened” status if it is “likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all, or a significant portion of its range.”17 While it is clear from population trends that polar bears are not currently endangered or threatened, environmental groups are hoping to exploit this exceedingly broad requirement by claiming that global warming could eradicate the species (in the wild) in perhaps a century’s time.
The 2005 petition to the Secretary of the Interior seeking the listing of the polar bear filed by Center for Biological Diversity makes this clear:
From the Introduction, page vii: “While most [polar bear] populations are reasonably healthy and the global population is not presently endangered, the species as a whole faces the likelihood of severe endangerment and possible extinction by the end of the century… Only with prompt action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions can the future of the polar bear be assured.”
And on page 20, “Global warming is the primary threat to the continued survival of the polar bear…”18
The case, then, for listing the bear largely rests on the theory that human activity is causing global warming and that such warming will be catastrophic within a century’s time. This is problematic for several reasons. First, though opinions on global warming are easy to come by, a theory by its very definition is conjecture, not established fact, and thus makes for shaky ground on which to base policy. Furthermore, the Earth’s climate is extremely complex, and human beings are far from understanding it. Mathematical models predicting global warming thus have been and as yet remain subject to severe limitations as to their likely accuracy. They are constantly being revised, and often disagree with one another. While one hesitates to put it so starkly, when it comes to knowing the temperature of the planet in a hundred years, the best policymakers can do is choose between competing educated guesses.
The use of the anthropogenic global warming theory as a basis for federal protection of the polar bear or any other living thing is problematic secondarily because of the tremendous cost involved in taking effective action to curb such warming, should we choose base federal policy on the assumption the theory is correct. Under the theory, only a massive reduction in energy use is expected to have a notable impact on global warming. Stopping such warming thus would require either a very substantial fiscal outlay by ordinary Americans both in their personal spending and in their tax expenses, or a radical reduction in standard of living, or some combination thereof. If the federal government is to mandate such sacrifices – and such is not recommended here – it should do so only after serious deliberations by the Congress, with input from the Executive, and not made solely by a presidential appointee who has been given the narrow task of enforcing of a 1973 law adopted — interestingly, at a time when a global cooling theory was receiving media attention — for entirely different purposes.
Listing the Polar Bear Could Hurt Polar Bear Conservation Efforts
Should the polar bear be listed as threatened under the ESA, an automatic prohibition on the importation of polar bear hides, meat and trophies into the U.S. would result, absent the adoption of special rules allowing importation to continue. A ban on importation would not only harm current “sustainable use” hunting of the bear in Canada, but also harm the conservation, management and scientific programs that benefit from such hunting.19 These programs are both funded and driven by carefully regulated sport hunting, which makes the bear a valuable resource to native economies and provides the proper incentives to keep bear population levels healthy.
As the World Conservation Union (IUCN) notes, polar bear hunting by foreigners is very important to both the health of indigenous communities and the polar bear:
A proportion of the harvest quota (varying between 12 and 15% annually) is allocated by hunter trapper organizations (HTOs) for outfitted hunts for foreign sportsmen who pay outfitting and trophy fees up to $30,000 per bear for the privilege of participating in the hunt. Approximately 2/3 of such payments makes its way directly to the local community and represent an important source of seasonal revenue and employment in these low-income regions. This added value helps sustain the hunter/wildlife relationships that benefit customary conservation values and practices. The small proportion of the total number of tags allocated by Inuit hunters to sport hunting reflects the high value placed on polar bear hunting by native hunters.20
Furthermore, each time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issues a permit to import a polar bear trophy into the United States, $1,000 of the import fee goes “to develop and implement cooperative research and management programs for the conservation of polar bears in Alaska and Russia under section 113(d) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.”21
According to the IUCN, between April 1997 and December 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued 705 permits to allow the importation of polar bear trophies,22 generating $705,000 for conservation programs.
The Alaskan government recently warned against listing the polar bear under the ESA, stressing the danger such a listing would pose to polar bear conservation and local economies:
The ability for polar bears to be hunted and hides legally imported into the United States creates a unique economic incentive for Nunavut [Canada] residents and their communities to benefit economically and socially as well as for scientists to gain cooperation in the monitoring and conservation through setting of harvest quotas.
As significant portion of the world population of polar bears is subject to Canadian and Nunavut management authorities and only a small portion of polar bear habitat occurs in the United States. A listing as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act would automatically trigger a “depleted” designation under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Such a designation prohibits take of polar bear, which will prevent import of hides and prohibits subsistence harvest by Alaska Natives. Although the Service professes intent to write regulations to allow Alaska Natives to continue to harvest polar bears and to allow the import of hides, the likelihood of subsequent litigation to eliminate all hunting is nearly certain.
The sustainable management of hunting programs in Canada is largely tied to the economic incentives for its governments to implement and adhere to polar bear harvest quotas, which are otherwise entirely voluntary under the act establishing Nunavut. The conservation management includes establishment of male/female harvest ratios, protection of cubs, and others in co-management agreements. It also results in cooperative establishment of carrying capacity and programs that significantly reduce nuisance kills near communities and hunting camps. Elimination of these conservation measures by depriving the managers of incentives would result from a listing under the Endangered Species Act that prohibits the import of hides and will not benefit polar bears in Canada and other countries. It will also deprive Alaska Natives of traditional uses without benefiting polar bear populations or their habitat in Alaska.23
Safari Club International has also warned that listing the polar bear would harm the management and conservation of the animal:
Listing would undermine conservation by curtailing the involvement of U.S. hunters in Canadian sport hunting of the polar bear, disrupting an important source of funds to support polar bear management and conservation. Since the ESA listing would not stop polar bear hunting, but merely the ability of U.S. citizens to import polar bears, the listing would accomplish nothing in terms of reducing the number of polar bears taken. Instead, native subsistence hunters and/or sport-hunters from countries other than the U.S., who will likely pay much less for the polar bear hunt than U.S. citizens, will fill the market. The result of listing likely will be continued take at current levels, with less revenue for polar bear management and conservation. The $1,000 per import permit for research and conservation also would be lost.24
In a letter to their colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives, the leaders of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus warned that a ban on the importation of polar bear trophies into the U.S. would “deprive the Nunavut of a critical source of revenue and deplete global funds for polar bear conservation.”25
The letter further states:
The Government of Nunavut and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board together contribute about $1,000,000 per year to polar bear conservation, in addition to providing local conservation staff. Another $100,000 is generated in license fees, which is put toward international polar bear conservation efforts. Sport hunts bring in a total of $2.5 million for Nunavut communities, many of which have little other economic activity.26
The Congressional Research Service notes in a March 2007 report: “Such an import ban, effectively stopping U.S. participation in conservation hunting programs, is likely to seriously compromise successful Canadian community-based conservation programs.”27
The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies told Congress that a ban on the importation of polar bear trophies into the U.S. “would not result in the taking of fewer polar bears; it will just complicate the work of those trying to conserve them.”28
A study conducted by the University of Calgary’s Arctic Institute of North America found that polar bear hunting in Canada helps ensure the short and long-term health of the population because it provides the necessary incentives to monitor, manage and protect the bear’s population and habitat.29
Listing the Polar Bear Could be Costly
Listing the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act could have far-reaching negative consequences on virtually all sectors of the American economy, as virtually all are dependent on energy use. In the past, regulatory actions undertaken under the ESA have been limited to the general vicinity of a species’ declared habitat. However, if man-made carbon dioxide emissions are deemed harmful to the polar bear’s existence, regulators may not deem it significant if those emissions originate in Kansas or in Alaska.
According to Stoel Rives Environmental Group:
[I]f the polar bear were listed and critical habitat designated based on environmental impacts attributed to GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions, the consequences of such a finding for all major U.S.-based GHG emission sources and to planned energy and industrial facilities could be significant. Action agencies permitting or authorizing such facilities may be required to consult with FWS under Section 7 of the ESA each time they issue a Title V permit under the Clean Air Act, or take other actions that ‘may affect’ listed polar bears. Such ESA consultations would address whether the direct, indirect and cumulative effects of the proposed action jeopardize the survival or recovery of polar bears, and whether the proposed action adversely modifies designated critical habitat.30
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, America’s dependence on foreign oil negatively “affects our economy and our national energy security.”31 This dependence is likely to be exacerbated should the polar bear be listed under the ESA, as such a listing would present an additional barrier to oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the most promising unexplored oil reserve in North America, and in other areas as well.32
Under Section 7 of the ESA, federal agencies are required to work with the U.S. Interior Department to ensure that any action they undertake does not “jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat of such species.”33 The Section 7 Consultation Handbook, produced by the Clinton Administration in 1998, is over 300 pages long.34
As the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports, Section 7 consultations can have a crippling effect:
After several fish species in the Pacific Northwest were listed in the late 1990s, the Services’ consultation workload increased significantly in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, and the Services were unable to keep up with requests for consultation. As a result, many proposed activities were delayed for months or years. Even under normal workload conditions, the consultation process can be difficult, in part because decisions about how species will be protected must often be made with uncertain scientific information using professional judgment.35
The ESA’s regulatory supremacy over a wide range of federal actions is well documented, as are the legal provocations from the environmental community. Both would be vastly expanded should carbon dioxide emissions be deemed to fall under the Act’s authority.
For example, future power plant construction necessary to feed our growing economy, as well as energy use in general, could be threatened by activists’ lawsuits that claim CO2 emissions are harmful to the “threatened” polar bear. As primary energy use in the United States (including residential, commercial, industrial and transportation) is projected to increase 31 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, the need for new energy generating capability is obvious.36
Vital public works and defense projects, as well as private economic activity important to the livelihood of large numbers of Americans could likewise be stymied by litigation and regulation, as the federal agencies responsible for such projects could be required to clear their activities with the Interior Department under Section 7 prior to acting.
Such scenarios are not without precedent.
For example, in response to lawsuits filed by environmental groups, the federal government denied water to 1,500 farmers and over 200,000 acres of the Upper Klamath Lake region of Oregon in 2001, citing the need to protect two fish listed under the ESA.37
Likewise, in 2003 a federal judge ordered a reduction in the amount of dammed water that would be permitted to flow into the Missouri River despite the detrimental effect such an action posed to people along the river. This, too, was in response to environmentalist lawsuits filed under the ESA. According to Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, “Water for the Missouri is like blood for our bodies; the flow of the Missouri River helps keep our economy alive.”38 As written, however, the ESA does not make distinctions between protections that harm human beings, and those that do not.
Not even military readiness and training is immune from the long grasp of the ESA. Marine training exercises at Camp Pendleton, California have been hampered to accommodate the tidewater goby, a species of fish listed under the ESA.39
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, energy use by the U.S. military accounted for roughly 81% of all energy consumption by federal agencies in 2005.40 Should energy use be restricted under the ESA to protect the “threatened” polar bear, military operations and readiness could conceivably be impaired.
If restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions are imposed to protect the bear’s critical habitat under the ESA, it could prove extremely costly across the U.S. The Department of Energy determined that emissions restrictions like those prescribed in the Kyoto Protocol would have reduced U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) $397 billion by 2010.41 In addition, the regulatory and tax costs of complying with such restrictions could be as high as $338 billion (1992 dollars) annually from 2008 to 2012.42 Such restrictions were predicted to raise electric utility bills by an estimated 86 percent, the cost of heating oil by 76 percent and gasoline prices by 66 cents per gallon.43
The threat of regulatory actions and activists’ lawsuits would not be limited to federal activities. If carbon dioxide emissions are deemed legally harmful to the polar bear or its habitat, then the act of emitting carbon dioxide, or perhaps “too much” of it, anywhere in the U.S., could be considered an illegal activity for private individuals under the ESA’s broad “take” provision in Section 9. Certain private activities in which CO2 is emitted could trigger environmental lawsuits and adverse regulatory actions for U.S. citizens and property owners.
Should the polar bear be listed, the possibilities for an expansion of federal regulatory power combined with lawsuit abuse are nearly endless. They also could be pointless, as even a radical reduction in energy use by the United States would not be sufficient to forestall alleged anthropogenic global warming in light of increased greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, China, India and elsewhere.
Listing the Polar Bear because of Projected Future Global Warming Could Set an Expansive New Precedent for Future ESA Listings
The polar bear could become the first species to be listed under the ESA specifically due to the effect climate fluctuation is projected to have on its habitat. This would establish a wildly broad standard for listing species, as the climate is in constant flux, and whether warming or cooling, is bound to have both positive and negative effects on many species and their habitats.
It should be noted that some environmental activists have claimed that two corals listed as threatened under the ESA in 2006 already establish a “global warming” precedent for listing species.
In May 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service, in response to a petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, listed both the staghorn and elkhorn corals as threatened under the ESA.44 In its petition the CBD claims “global warming” is one factor afflicting the species.45
However, the listing determination for both corals found in the Federal Register lists “elevated sea surface temperature” as one of many factors with the “potential to impact” the coral, and does not attribute the cause of temperature rise to anthropogenic activities.46 Furthermore, the determination states:
We determined that neither elkhorn nor staghorn corals are currently in danger of extinction throughout their entire ranges and neither meets the definition of endangered under the ESA…
Additionally, as evidenced by the geologic record, both elkhorn and staghorn corals have persisted through climate cooling and heating fluctuation periods over millions of years, whereas other corals have gone extinct.47
The Center for Biological Diversity apparently agrees the coral listings do not establish a “global warming” listing precedent. As CBD staff attorney Kassie Siegel wrote in an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times: “The corals were listed as threatened species in May, but with far less fanfare than the polar bear and without an explicit recognition of global warming as a cause of their decline.”48
Siegel also writes that the U.S. Interior Department’s proposal to list the polar bear “marks the first legally binding admission by the Bush administration of the reality of global warming.”49 If the CBD considers the mere proposal to list the polar bear as significant precedent, then the actual listing of the two coral species by the Bush administration, at least in the eyes of Siegel and the CBD, did not establish such precedent.
It is by the listing of the polar bear that Siegel and her colleagues apparently hope to achieve “explicit recognition of global warming.” As Siegel herself writes, “Once protection for the polar bear is finalized, federal agencies and other large greenhouse gas emitters will be required by law to ensure that their emissions do not jeopardize the species. And the only way to avoid jeopardizing the polar bear is to reduce emissions.”50
Indeed, two unfortunate precedents could be established by listing the polar bear under the ESA: 1) The precedent whereby species may be listed as threatened under the ESA because third parties have predicted future climate fluctuations, which, if they come to pass, could be threatening to the species, and 2) a precedent in which greenhouse gas emissions are regulated not based upon the perceived benefits of such regulations to human beings after due consideration of pros and cons, but automatically, even if (as seems likely) human beings and other species are adversely affected.
Conclusion
The global polar bear population is healthy, and the estimated total number of bears is more than double the amount thought to exist four decades ago. The charge from some environmental groups that the polar bear is threatened by anthropogenic global warming, which they say could cause the bear’s extinction in the wild within a century, is unsubstantiated. Their claim rests on the theory that man is largely responsible for recent increases in global temperature and that these increases will continue unabated unless radical decreases in global greenhouse gas emissions are mandated and accomplished. Expert opinion, however, disagrees on this point, and climate science, which is extremely complex, remains in its infancy.
Furthermore, listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act could harm bear conservation efforts by eliminating revenues from the carefully-regulated sport hunting of polar bears by Americans and the importation of polar bear meat and trophies into the U.S. As hunting by non-Americans would replace hunting by Americans, nothing would be accomplished in terms of reducing the number of polar bears taken, but the revenue currently generated by American sport hunters for conservation and research efforts would be eliminated.
Listing the polar bear as threatened due to projected global warming also could be enormously costly to the U.S. economy and could create a precedent for massively expanded federal regulatory powers under the ESA. It is very likely to harm indigenous cultures in the arctic while increasing the number of lawsuits filed for the purpose of blocking economic activity in the U.S.
One thing it is unlikely to do is help the polar bear.
Footnotes:
1 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Polar Bears and the Endangered Species Act,” February 2007, available at http://alaska.fws.gov/fisheries/mmm/polarbear/pdf/Polar_Bear_Fact_Sheet.pdf as of March 26, 2008.
2 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Alaska, “Marine Mammals Management: Polar Bear Natural History,” January 2004, available at http://alaska.fws.gov/fisheries/mmm/polarbear/facts.htm as of March 26, 2008.
3 Ibid.
4 San Francisco Zoo, “Polar Bear,” available at http://www.sfzoo.org/cgi-bin/animals.py?ID=18 as of April 6, 2007.
5 International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, “Red Data Book,” Vol. 1 – Mammalia, 1966, available at http://www.animalinfo.org/species/carnivor/ursumari.htm as of April 6, 2007.
6 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Alaska, “Marine Mammals Management: Polar Bear Population History,” January 4, 2004, available at http://alaska.fws.gov/fisheries/mmm/polarbear/phistory.htm as of March 26, 2008.
7 Polar Bears International, “Polar Bear Status Report,” available at http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/, as of April 6, 2007.
8 Steven C. Amstrup, “Section 8: Polar Bears: Movements and Population Dynamics of Polar Bears,” Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain Terrestrial Wildlife Research Summaries, U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Geological Survey, 2002, available at http://www.absc.usgs.gov/1002/section8.htm as of March 26, 2008.
9 Polar Bears International, “Polar Bear FAQ,” available at http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/faq/ as of April 6, 2007.
10 World Wildlife Federation, “Save the Polar Bear,” July 13, 2006, available at http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/europe/
what_we_do/arctic/polar_bear/threats/hunting/index.cfm as of April 6, 2007.
11 Stefan Norris, Lynn Rosentrater, and Pål Martin Eid, “Polar Bears at Risk,” World Wildlife Federation, May 2002, available at http://worldwildlife.org/polarbears/pubs/polar_bears_risk.pdf as of April 6, 2007.
12 Dr. Mitchell Taylor, “Silly to Predict Their Demise,” Toronto Star, p. A19, May 1, 2006.
13 Steven Milloy, “Polar Bear Meltdown,” FOXNews.com, December 28, 2006, available at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,239697,00.html as of April 6, 2007.
14 William J. Snape, III, “Testimony of William J. Snape, III,” Hearing on a Proposal to List the Polar Bear Under the ESA, Interior Department, Washington, DC, March 5, 2007.
15 Jeffrey A. Michael, “The Endangered Species Act and Private Landowner Incentives,” available at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ws/nwrc/symposia/economics/michael.pdf as of April 6, 2007.
16 Allison Winter, “Yellowstone Grizzlies Lose ESA Protection,” E&E News PM, E&E Publishing, LLC, March 22, 2007, available at http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2007/03/22/#7 as of April 6, 2007.
17 United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Northeastern Area, “Threatened and Endangered Species and the Private Landowner,” available at http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/wildlife/endangered/endangered.htm as of April 6, 2007.
18 “Before the Secretary of the Interior, Petition to List the Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) as a Threatened Species Under the Endangered Species Act,” Center for Biological Diversity, February 16, 2005.
19 Ralph Cunningham, “Comments on Proposed Rule to List the Polar Bear as Threatened,” Safari Club International, April 9, 2007, page 2.
20 Dr. Lee Foot, Dr. Milton Freeman, “U.S. Endangered Species Act: Polar Bear Listing,” World Conservation Union, May 2006, available at http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/susg/news/may06polarbear.htm as of May 15, 2007.
21 50 C.F.R. § 18.30(g)(2), current as of May 11, 2007, available at http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=c0b16ccd693b08320cfb751b315b3142&rgn=div5&view=text&node=50:6.0.1.1.1&idno=50 as of May 15, 2007.
22 Jon Aars, Nicholas J. Lunn, Andrew E. Derocher, “Polar Bears: Proceedings of the 14th Working Meeting of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group, 20-24 June 2005, Seattle, Washington, USA,” page 74.
23 State of Alaska, “State of Alaska’s consolidated state agency comments, additional data, and analyses as requested in the January 9, 2007, (Federal Register Vol. 72, No. 5) proposal to list the polar bear as threatened throughout its range pursuant to the Endangered Species Act,” April 9, 2007, page 13, available at http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/special/esa/polarbears/state_comments4-9-07.pdf as of April 24, 2007.
24 Ralph Cunningham, “Comments on Proposed Rule to List the Polar Bear as Threatened,” Safari Club International, April 9, 2007, pp. 4-5..
25 Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK), Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM), “Help Conserve Polar Bears: Oppose H.R. 2327,” Letter to Colleagues.
26 Ibid.
27 Eugene H. Buck, “Polar Bears: Proposed Listing Under the Endangered Species Act,” Congressional Research Service, March 30, 2007, page 11, available for download at http://opencrs.cdt.org/document/RL33941 as of June 27, 2007.
28 Matt Hogan, Letter to Members of Congress, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, June 22, 2007.
29 M.M.R. Freeman, G.W. Wenzel, “The Nature and Significance of Polar Bear Conservation Hunting in the Canadian Arctic,” Arctic Institute of North America of the University of Calgary, March 1, 2006, available at http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-14795316_ITM as of June 28, 2007 (Note: Free subscription required to view full study).
30 Stoel Rives Environmental Group, “Endangered Species Act Alert – Petition to List the Polar Bear Threatens Major U.S. Emission Sources and Alaska Oil and Gas Development,” available at http://www.stoel.com/showarticle.aspx?Show=847 as of April 6, 2007.
31 “Strengthen Energy National Security,” undated U.S. Department of Energy document, available at http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/oildep.shtml as of April 6, 2007.
32 Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski, Testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, on Energy Legislation,” February 10, 2005, available at http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.0f8c660ba7cf98d18a278110501010a0/?vgnextoid=60387618c4042010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD as of April 6, 2007.
33 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “The Endangered Species Act of 1973,” available at http://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa.html#Lnk07 as of April 6, 2007.
34 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Section 7 Consultation Handbook,” available at http://www.fws.gov/endangered/consultations/s7hndbk/s7hndbk.htm as of April 6, 2007.
35 U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Endangered Species: Despite Consultation Improvement Efforts in the Pacific Northwest, Concerns Persist about the Process,” Summary, June 25, 2003, available at http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/details.php?rptno=GAO-03-949T as of April 6, 2007.
36 U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Annual Energy Outlook 2007 with Projections to 2030,” p. 73, February 2007, available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/index.html as of April 6, 2007.
37 John P. McGovern MD Center for Environmental and Regulator Affairs, “Shattered Dreams: One Hundred Stories of Government Abuse, Fourth Edition,” The National Center for Public Policy Research, p. 28, 2003, available at https://nationalcenter.org/ShatteredDreams.pdf as of April 6, 2007.
38 Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs, “Shattered Dreams: One Hundred Stories of Government Abuse, Fifth Edition,” The National Center for Public Policy Research,” p. 42, 2007, available at https://nationalcenter.org/ShatteredDreams.html as of April 6, 2007.
39 Dana Joel Gattuso, “Rules Protecting Endangered Species Endanger Defense Readiness Instead,” National Policy Analysis, The National Center for Public Policy Research, July 2003, available at https://nationalcenter.org/NPA475.html.
40 U.S. Energy Information Administration, “U.S. Government Energy Consumption by Agency, Fiscal Years 1975-2005,” Table 1.11, available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/overview.html as of April 6, 2007.
41 Energy Information Administration, “What Does the Kyoto Protocol Mean to U.S. Energy Markets and the U.S. Economy?,” Department of Energy, October 1998, available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/kyoto/kyotobtxt.html as of April 6, 2007.
42 Ibid.
43 John Carlisle, “President Bush Must Kill Kyoto Global Warming Treaty and Oppose Efforts to Regulate Carbon Dioxide,” The National Center for Public Policy Research, February 2001, available at https://nationalcenter.org/NPA328.html.
44 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Elkhorn and Staghorn Corals Listed in Threatened Status,” May 5, 2006, available at http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2627.htm as of May 15, 2007.
45 Center for Biological Diversity, “Petition to List Acropora Palmata (Elkhorn Coral), Acropora Cervicornis (Staghorn Coral), and Acropora Prolifera (Fused-Staghorn Coral as Endangered Species Under the Endangered Species Act,” March 3, 2004.
46 Federal Register, “Rules and Regulations,” Vol. 71, No. 89, May 9, 2006, page 26,858.
47 Ibid, page 26,856.
48 Kassie Siegel, “Don’t Wait to Save the Polar Bear,” Los Angeles Times, January 8, 2007, available at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-siegel8jan08,0,2035118.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail as of May 15, 2007 and http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0108-23.htm as of March 26, 2008.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.