The Obama administration reaffirmed Wednesday its decision to designate polar bears as a "threatened," not "endangered," species, in defiance of the wishes of conservationists who say the bears are in danger of extinction because their arctic hunting grounds are melting. 
 
 The administration was under a court-imposed deadline to decide whether it would upgrade the bears' status to "endangered." 
 
 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told a U.S. District Court judge Wednesday that the threatened designation will not change because polar bears were not considered to be in danger of extinction at the time of the listing in 2008. 
 
 "The Service explained how its biologists had concluded in 2008 that the polar bear was not facing sudden and catastrophic threats [and] was still a widespread species that had not been restricted to a critically small range or critically low numbers," the agency said in a statement. 
 
 Threatened species receive most of the same regulatory protections as those listed under the Endangered Species Act, including a requirement that federal agencies refrain from actions that might jeopardize their existence or destroy or harm their habitat. 
 
 Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the administration's decision "a huge disappointment." Arctic ice, the bears' hunting ground, is melting and bears are starving to death, she said. 
 
 "It's a wasted opportunity to do the right thing," Siegel said. "The government's own studies show about an 80 percent chance of extinction of two-thirds of the world's polar bears in the next 40 years." ||||| Obama gives 'lump of coal' to polar bears: activists 
 
 WASHINGTON — Environmental groups on Thursday accused US President Barack Obama's administration of failing to ensure the survival of polar bears after it stopped short of listing the animals as endangered. 
 
 Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity, who has led legal efforts to protect the polar bear, said that the Obama administration "sacrificed sound science for political expediency." 
 
 "The Obama administration delivered a lump of coal to the polar bear for Christmas," she said in a statement. 
 
 The US Fish and Wildlife Service, responding to a legal suit, agreed Wednesday that climate change posed "serious threats" to the polar bears by melting their Arctic habitat in the northernmost state of Alaska. 
 
 But the service said the threat was "in the foreseeable future" and that polar bears were not "in danger of extinction." A listing as endangered would likely lead to federal protection of areas rich in oil and gas. 
 
 Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council questioned the administration's logic, saying: "I guess if a wrecking ball is barreling down on your house, you are just 'threatened.'" 
 
 The decision left in place a 2008 ruling under president George W. Bush, whose administration was much less eager than predecessors to protect animals under the Endangered Species Act. 
 
 The Obama administration has pledged to become more active in fighting climate change, and it incurred the wrath of the oil industry on Thursday by announcing it would regulate greenhouse gas emissions by power plants. 
 
 Last month, the Fish and Wildlife Service set aside 187,000 square miles (484,000 square kilometers) off Alaska's northern shore as a bear habitat, which means any project that could impact the animals' way of life must undergo careful review. 
 
 The northern polar cap has shrunk between 15 and 20 percent over the last 30 years. But a recent study in the British journal Nature said that the melting was not inevitable and could be reversed. 
 
 Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| Ignoring calls from environmentalists to revisit the status of the polar bear, the Obama administration outlined yesterday its legal reasoning for why it should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. 
 
 The Fish and Wildlife Service was responding to a court order requiring it to further explain why polar bears should be considered threatened rather than endangered, which is a higher threat level. 
 
 Environmentalists argue that the bear should be listed as endangered, while industry groups say it shouldn't be listed at all. 
 
 Last month, in the court case arising from the dispute over the bear's status, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia ordered FWS to provide a more detailed legal basis for its position, which is in line with the stance taken by the George W. Bush administration when it first listed polar bears as threatened in 2008 (E&ENews; PM, Nov. 4). 
 
 There was never any indication from the government that it planned to change its position, although environmental groups challenging the listing, including the Center for Biological Diversity, had hoped that it would. 
 
 The memorandum filed with the court focused on the phrase "in danger of extinction," which is used in the ESA to define what constitutes an endangered species. Sullivan said the meaning of the phrase was unclear. 
 
 Under Supreme Court precedent, when the meaning of a statutory phrase is not easily discernible, government agencies have discretion to interpret the law, within certain boundaries. 
 
 Environmentalists have presented evidence that they say shows that the bear is in danger of extinction, but FWS maintains that, under its interpretation of the statute, a species is only endangered when it is "currently on the brink of extinction in the wild." 
 
 When analyzing the polar bear, the agency found that the species "has not been restricted to a critically small range or critically low numbers, and has yet to suffer any substantial reduction in numbers or range," the memorandum says. 
 
 The polar bear does "face a serious threat" and is "likely to become an endangered species in the foreseeable future," the government concedes. 
 
 The findings justify a listing as threatened, which is defined in the ESA as a species "which is likely to become an endangered species in the foreseeable future," the agency added. 
 
 The court case has implications beyond the polar bear because environmentalists would like to see the Endangered Species Act used as a tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 
 
 If the polar bear were listed as endangered, the government could be required to act to curb emissions to protect its habitat. 
 
 As long as the bear is listed as threatened, that cannot happen because of a Bush-era regulation, retained by the Obama administration, that states that a finding that polar bears were covered by the ESA could not be used as grounds for reducing greenhouse gas emissions nationwide. The regulation only applies to a threatened listing. 
 
 Andrew Wetzler, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, conceded he hadn't expected the government to change its position, but he said it was a lost opportunity for the administration. 
 
 "One would hope that the growing scientific consensus about the warming of the Arctic would have spurred them into action," he added. 
 
 The legal fight is not yet over. All the parties challenging the listing will have a chance to respond to the government's filing before Sullivan holds another hearing on Feb. 23. 
 
 Copyright 2010 E&E; Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
– Not everybody's heaping praise on the Obama administration this week: Environmentalists are fuming that the Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to ramp up protection of polar bears by changing their status from "threatened" to "endangered." In response to a court deadline, the agency said yesterday that the bears are indeed at risk, just not the imminent risk the "endangered" label requires, reports the Washington Post. "I guess if a wrecking ball is barreling down on your house, you are just 'threatened,'" Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council told AFP. The heightened status could have created a regulatory mess by requiring the Obama administration to curb greenhouse gas emissions, notes the New York Times. Click here to read about fears that climate change could create a new polar-grizzly beast.