Opponents of polar bear proposal step up lobbying efforts

American opponents of environmental legislation are launching a last-minute effort to dissuade the U.S. government from listing polar bears as a threatened species under its Endangered Species Act — a decision that could affect hunters in Nunavut.

As the government prepares to release its decision within the next two weeks, the American Land Rights Association and other groups are trying to convince politicians and officials that listing the bears as a threatened species would hurt the economy.

"The result will be a catastrophic increase in regulations, a downturn in the economy, a tremendous impact … on small business," Chuck Cushman, the association's executive director, told CBC News.

Cushman, whose Battle Ground, Wash., organization advocates for the rights of private property owners against environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act, said he has called on his members and is working with other groups to flood officials with phone calls, e-mails and faxes.

The organization said that listing the polar bear as a threatened species would lead to such tight controls on land use and greenhouse gas emissions that the U.S. economy overall would suffer.

"There's no question: we want to try to save the polar bear," he said.

"The question is, is it threatened and are there ways to do it, short of [the] catastrophic imposition of 'threatened species' under the Endangered Species Act, which would impose enormous regulations … and create a nightmare for thousands of local communities?"

Activists claim inadequate evidence

Cushman said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has conducted research into the listing proposal, should not rush into a decision without adequate information.

He argued that not enough evidence exists to support the claim that polar bears are in danger throughout their habitat.

That argument is shared by Paul Driessen, a lobbyist and vocal critic of the environmental movement who wrote the book Eco-Imperialism; Green Power, Black Death.

"There's no evidence that there's any threat to the polar bears, certainly not in the foreseeable future," Driessen said.

"Computer models are not evidence, and the economic and social impacts of making this decision would be monumental."

The U.S. decision could affect people in Nunavut, where the sport hunting industry is lucrative for Inuit hunters. The Nunavut government has told the Fish and Wildlife Service that it opposes any plan to make the bear a threatened species.

Wildlife official accused of stalling

Meanwhile, the wildlife service's top official was accused Wednesday of stalling on protecting polar bears in order to make it easier for drilling companies to get oil leases in Alaska.

Fish and Wildlife Service director Dale Hall came under attack at a hearing of the Senate environment and natural resources committee after he said that a decision on whether to list the polar bears might not be made before the government opens up a major bear habitat to oil leases next week.

Staff recommendations on the issue have been completed, but a final decision has not yet been forwarded to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

Committee members accused the Department of the Interior of stalling to make it easier for oil companies to obtain drilling leases in the Chukchi Sea, where a fifth of the Arctic's polar bears use sea ice to hunt for food.

Another Interior Department agency, the Minerals Management Service, plans to open a large area of the Chukchi Sea to oil and gas leases Feb. 6.

The Chukchi Sea is home to one of two U.S. polar bear populations, and scientists say global warming is causing serious melting of Arctic sea ice, the bear's primary habitat.

The committee's chairwoman, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), demanded "a commitment to take immediate action" to protect the bear before the leasing begins.

She also asked Hall why his agency "is dragging its feet" on the polar bear legislation while the department "is moving quickly ... to allow new oil activities in one of the biological hearts of the polar bear's habitat."

Hall said he could not promise a decision before Feb. 6 and could only say that a recommendation on the bear issue will be sent to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne "in the very near future."