[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 1 (Thursday, January 4, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S24-S25]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              POLAR BEARS

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I do not see anyone else in the Chamber 
right now. I wish to speak on a totally different subject.
  Up until I guess today, turnover day, as the Presiding Officer knows, 
I have chaired the Environment and Public Works Committee for 4 years. 
I have enjoyed that very much. I will be turning that over now to 
Senator Barbara Boxer. We will still be working very closely together.
  One thing that happened a few days ago that I think is worth getting 
on the record and talking about a little bit, because this is something 
which is going to come up in our discussions in that committee, is, as 
you probably noticed, Mr. President, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
recently took some action to begin formal consideration of whether to 
list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered 
Species Act. Over the next year, they are going to be working on this 
issue, making a determination as to whether the listing should take 
place. So right now we are starting that 1-year period.
  The question the Service has to answer is this: Is there clear 
scientific evidence that the current worldwide polar bear population is 
in trouble and facing possible extinction in the foreseeable future? As 
the Service reviews the issue over the next year, I am confident they 
will conclude, as I have, that listing the polar bear is unwarranted at 
this time.
  In the proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledges that for 
7 of the 19 worldwide polar bear populations--this is very significant. 
There are 19 populations worldwide for the polar bear. For seven of 
those populations, the Service has no population trend data of any 
kind. For more than a third of the known populations out there, we 
don't have any information. The other data suggests that for an 
additional five polar bear populations, the number of bears is not 
declining but is stable. Two more of the bear populations showed a 
reduced number in the past due to overhunting, but these two 
populations are now increasing because of new hunting restrictions.
  Other sources of data mentioned in a recent Wall Street Journal 
piece--just this past Tuesday--suggest that ``there are more polar 
bears in the world now than there were 40 years ago.'' I have to say 
there are quite a few more, almost twice the number from 40 years ago.
  The Service estimates that the polar bear population is 20,000 to 
25,000 bears, whereas in the fifties and sixties, the estimates were as 
low as 5,000 to 10,000 bears, and most of that was due to sport hunting 
at that time, and most of that has been banned.
  A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey study of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge 
Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations ``may now be near 
historic highs.''
  So if the number of polar bears does not appear to be in decline, 
then why are we considering listing the species as threatened? Because 
the Endangered Species Act is broken. It needs to be fixed. We tried to 
fix it for the past 4 years. We have been unable to reach a consensus.
  The ESA allows the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the entire range 
of polar bears as threatened and thereby extend a wide array of 
regulatory restrictions to them and their habitat despite the dearth of 
data and a lack of scientific evidence that polar bears are, indeed, in 
trouble.
  The law also allows for the Fish and Wildlife Service to justify its 
proposal on a sample from a single population in western Hudson Bay in 
Canada where the populations have decreased by 259 polar bears in the 
last 17 years. Stop and think about this. This is the western Hudson 
Bay in Canada, 1 of 19 sites. This is the one which is the most severe.
  The population has decreased by 259 polar bears in the last 17 years; 
however, the figures that the International Union of Conservation of 
Nature and Natural Resources says that 234 bears have been killed in 
the last 5 years alone. If you figure that 234 have been killed in the 
last 5 years, the total in the last 17 years is 259, you have to assume 
that more than the 259 were actually shot. Ironically, Canada now is 
liberalizing a lot of their hunting in that area, and it is going to 
allow more hunting. This is something they need to address.
  At this point, I would like to say that while I support hunting as a 
general matter, we need to fully understand its impact on the polar 
bear population before we blame global warming for changes in bear 
population. I already said we can document pretty well--scientifically 
it is documented--that the number of bears has actually increased 
except in areas where hunting is more prevalent.
  I think there are a lot of people who want to somehow insert global 
warming as a crisis in everything and use polar bears for that reason, 
and we are not going to let that take place.
  The Fish and Wildlife Service asserts that the reason for the decline 
in the western Hudson Bay population is climate change-induced ice 
melting. To make that assertion, they rely on hypothetical climate 
change computer models showing massive loss of ice and irreparable 
damages in the polar bear's habitat. The Service then extrapolates that 
reasoning to the other 18 populations of polar bears. There are 19 
populations, 1 of them is in trouble, but they use that as the model, 
and they take that and apply that same extrapolation to the other 18 
populations of polar bears, making the assumption all bears in these 
populations will eventually decline and go extinct.
  Again, this conclusion is not based on field data but hypothetical 
modeling, and that is considered perfectly acceptable scientific 
evidence under the Endangered Species Act.
  That is why it should be changed. I don't believe our Federal 
conservation policy should be dictated by hypothetical computer 
projections because the stakes of listing a decision under ESA could be 
extremely high. The listing of the polar bear is no exception. The ESA 
is the most effective Federal tool to usurp local land use control and 
undermine private property rights. As landowners and businesses have 
known for decades, when you want to stop a development project or just 
about any other activity, find a species on that land to protect and 
things will slow down and many times they stop. It could be the bearing 
beetle, the Arkansas shiner, and now it could be the polar bear. This 
is because section 7 of the ESA requires that any project that involves 
the Federal Government in any way must meet the approval of the Fish 
and Wildlife Service before the project can move forward. The Federal 
Government's involvement in the project can take the form of a Federal 
grant, an environmental permit, a grazing allotment, a pesticide 
registration or land development permit or a number of other documents. 
The law requires that Fish and Wildlife intervene and determine if the 
project may affect an endangered or threatened species.
  So in the case of the polar bear listing, oil and gas exploration in 
Alaska, which accounts for 85 percent of the State's revenue and 25 
percent of the Nation's domestic oil production, is immediately called 
into question. Likewise, the State's shipping, highway construction or 
fishing activities will also be subject to Federal scrutiny under 
section 7.
  Furthermore, because the Fish and Wildlife Service has linked the 
icefloe habitat concerns of polar bears to global climate change, all 
kinds of projects around the country could be challenged. Some would 
say this isn't possible or that I am exaggerating. But if

[[Page S25]]

you take the ESA to its logical conclusion, which is certain to be done 
by environmental special interest groups, any activity that allegedly 
affects climate change or greenhouse gas emissions, they have to be 
evaluated and approved by Fish and Wildlife for its effect on the 
icefloes on which polar bears depend. Thus, this proposal could be the 
ultimate assault on local land use decisionmaking and suppression of 
private property rights to date.
  So it is important that we take the next year to gather information, 
to make sure it is logical science, and that our decisions are science 
based. Again, the Wall Street Journal of this past Wednesday--not 
Tuesday--has an article where they go through and document very well, 
very succinctly, that we are not having a problem in losing this 
population. In fact, it is actually growing. So I ask unanimous consent 
to include the Wall Street Journal editorial in its entirety.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 3, 2007]

 Polar Bear Politics--Using an ``Endangered'' Species To Change Energy 
                                Policy.

       Unless you've been hibernating for the winter, you have no 
     doubt heard the many alarms about global warming. Now even 
     the Bush Administration is getting into the act, at least 
     judging from last week's decision by Interior Secretary Dirk 
     Kempthorne to recommend that the majestic polar bear be 
     listed as ``threatened'' under the Endangered Species Act. 
     The closer you inspect this decision, however, the more it 
     looks like the triumph of politics over science.
       ``We are concerned,'' said Mr. Kempthorne, that ``the polar 
     bears' habitat may literally be melting'' due to warmer 
     Arctic temperatures. However, when we called Interior 
     spokesman Hugh Vickery for some elaboration, he was a lot 
     less categorical, even a tad defensive. The ``endangered'' 
     designation is based less on the actual number of bears in 
     Alaska than on ``projections into the future,'' Mr. Vickery 
     said, adding that these ``projection models'' are ``tricky 
     business.''
       Apparently so, because there are in fact more polar bears 
     in the world now than there were 40 years ago, as the nearby 
     chart shows. The main threat to polar bears in recent decades 
     has been from hunting, with estimates as low as 5,000 to 
     10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. But thanks to 
     conservation efforts, and some cross-border cooperation among 
     the U.S., Canada and Russia, the best estimate today is that 
     the polar bear population is 20,000 to 25,000.
       It also turns out that most of the alarm over the polar 
     bear's future stems from a single, peer-reviewed study, which 
     found that the bear population had declined by some 250, or 
     25 percent, in Western Hudson Bay in the last decade. But the 
     polar bear's range is far more extensive than Hudson Bay. A 
     2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge 
     Coastal Plain concluded that the ice bear populations ``may 
     now be near historic highs.'' One of the leading experts on 
     the polar bear, Mitchell Taylor, the manager of wildlife 
     resources for the Nunavut territory in Canada, has found that 
     the Canadian polar bear population has actually creased by 25 
     percent--to 15,000 from 12,000 over the past decade.
       Mr. Taylor tells us that in many parts of Canada, ``polar 
     bears are very abundant and productive. In some areas, they 
     are overly abundant. I understand that people not living in 
     the North generally have difficulty grasping the concept of 
     too many polar bears, but those who live here have a pretty 
     good grasp of what that is like.'' Those cuddly white bears 
     are the Earth's largest land carnivores.
       There is no doubt that higher temperatures threaten polar 
     bear habitat by melting sea ice. Mr. Kempthorne also says he 
     had little choice because the threshold for triggering a 
     study under the Endangered Species Act is low. The Bush 
     Administration was sued by the usual environmental suspects 
     to make this decision, which means that Interior will now 
     conduct a year-long review before any formal listing decision 
     is made.
       Nonetheless, the bears seem to have survived despite many 
     other severe warming and cooling periods over the last few 
     thousands of years. Polar bears are also protected from 
     poaching and environmental damage by the Marine Mammal 
     Protection Act, so there is little extra advantage to the 
     bears themselves from an ``endangered'' classification.
       All of which suggests that the real story here is a human 
     one, namely about the politics of global warming. Once a 
     plant or animal is listed under the Endangered Species Act, 
     the government must also come up with an elaborate plan to 
     protect its habitat. If the polar bear is endangered by 
     warmer temperatures, then the environmentalist demand will be 
     that the government do something to address that climate 
     change. Faster than you can say Al Gore, this would lead to 
     lawsuits and cries in Congress demanding federal mandates to 
     reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
       Think we're exaggerating? No sooner had Mr. Kempthorne 
     announced his study than Kassie Siegel of something called 
     the Center for Biological Diversity told the New York Times 
     that ``even this Administration'' would not be able to 
     ``write this proposal without acknowledging that the primary 
     threat to polar bears is global warming and without 
     acknowledging the science of global warming.'' Her outfit was 
     one of those who had sued the feds in the first place over 
     the polar bears, notwithstanding its location in the frozen 
     tundra of Arizona. But no matter. For want of a few hundred 
     polar bears, the entire U.S. economy could be vulnerable to 
     judicial dictation.
       With that much at stake, Mr. Kempthorne could have shown a 
     stiffer backbone in resisting this political pressure. At the 
     very least he now has an obligation to ensure that Interior's 
     year-long study be based on real science and the actual polar 
     bear population, rather than rely on computer projections. 
     Any government decision to limit greenhouse gases deserves to 
     be debated in the open, where the public can understand the 
     consequences, not legislated by the back door via the 
     Endangered Species Act.

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. BUNNING. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Bunning pertaining to the introduction of (S. 154 
and S. 155) are located in today's Record under ``Statements on 
Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

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