Alaska sues U.S. over polar bear designation

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The state of Alaska sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Monday, seeking to reverse his decision to list polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

Gov. Sarah Palin and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple offshore oil and gas development in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off in the state’s northern waters, the same waters that provide prime habitat for the only polar bears under U.S. jurisdiction.

“We believe that the service’s decision to list the polar bear was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available,” Palin said in announcing the lawsuit.

Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity, the lead author of the petition that led to the listing, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists addressed objections of skeptics like Palin during the listing process. She called the lawsuit “completely ridiculous and a waste of the court’s time.”

“This lawsuit and her head-in-the-sand approach to global warming only helps oil companies, certainly not Alaska or the polar bear,” Siegel said. “Gov. Palin should be working for sustainable, clean energy development in Alaska instead of extinction for the polar bear.”

Kempthorne announced the listing May 14. After a yearlong initial review, another year of public comment and additional studies, and court action to force a final decision, Kempthorne concluded that sea ice was vital to polar bear survival, that sea ice had dramatically melted in recent decades, and that computer models suggest sea ice likely will further recede in the future.

Summer sea ice last year shrunk to a record low, about 1.65 million square miles, nearly 40 percent less than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000.

The lawsuit takes issue with a handful of conclusions by Kempthorne and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The lawsuit contends federal officials did not consider the best scientific evidence demonstrating bears’ ability to survive and adapt changing climate conditions – a view rejected by most polar bear experts, who say the animals need ice to hunt seals and will not win a territory fight with grizzly bears that already inhabit northern Alaska.