Groups renew legal challenge to save polar bear

This Monday, May 22, 2006 file photo
provided by Mary Sage shows a polar bear
watching a whaling crew off shore near Barrow, Alaska.
(AP / Courtesy of Mary Sage, Joseph Napaaqtuq Sage)

Groups renew legal challenge to save polar bear

Updated Wed. May. 21 2008 8:11 AM ET
The Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska

Conservation groups have returned to court to challenge the Bush administration's response to efforts to help save the polar bear.

In court documents filed late last week, the conservation groups argue that U.S. officials are violating the Endangered Species Act for refusing to take steps against global warming.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and other groups are asking a U.S. federal judge to reject limited Interior Department actions that were announced last week.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, facing a court deadline because of the groups' earlier lawsuit, announced last week that polar bears would be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Among the steps he proposed to help them were increasing research and working with Canada to help the bears survive in the wild.

But he rejected the addition of broad steps to reduce greenhouse gases, saying he would not allow the Endangered Species Act to be "misused'' to regulate global climate change.

Polar bears are threatened with extinction in many areas because of the melting of their sea ice habitat. The groups say greenhouse gas emissions have led to rapid melting in the Arctic.

Kassie Siegel, climate director for the CBD, said the administration's proposal "violates both logic and the law'' because it did not address the primary threat to polar bears.

The listing of polar bears under the law is significant, she acknowledged, but the groups want them classified as endangered, a more serious category than threatened.

Joining in the court case were Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council. They announced their new federal court filing on Tuesday.

A message left with the Department of the Interior in Washington was not immediately returned.

Kempthorne said Americans deserve an honest assessment of the costs and benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Quoting President George W. Bush, he said the decision should not be left to "unelected regulators and judges'' who enforce the Endangered Species Act. He also said any real solution requires action by all major world economies.