US Won't Use Polar Bear to Battle Emissions

The Obama administration will not use the plight of polar bears and their melting habitat to regulate greenhouse gases, the Anchorage Daily News reports. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced today that a Bush-era law barring government scientists from considering emissions as they attempt to save the endangered species will stand. But, he added, “this administration is fully committed to the protection and recovery of the polar bear.”

The Endangered Species Act “is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue,” Salazar continued. Environmental groups said they would sue the government while the energy industry applauded the move, the Chicago Tribune adds. Salazar said it was impossible to explicitly tie emissions to the plight of the polar bear.
(More Ken Salazar stories.)