Remember this guy? When I posted about the threatening of the polar bear many months ago, the Bush administration was still dragging it's heels about declaring the animals endangered. After missing a legal deadline in January to protect the bears, whose habits are literally melting beneath their feet due to climate change, the Department of the Interior grudgingly gave the bears threatened status—yesterday. But with a caveat of course, courtesy of Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne:Listing the polar bears as 'threatened' can reduce avoidable losses of polar bears, but it should not open the door to using the ESA [Endangered Species Act] to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles, power plants and other sources.
No Dirk, we wouldn't want that, now would we? Not after your department tried to delay a decision until the end of June, which was only stopped when a judge forced you to make a decision, declaring the foot dragging illegal, by May 15. That would be today. Nice job, boys. Way to wait until the last possible moment.
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