by Janet Ritz,
Cross-posted on Reuters

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A federal judge has ordered the Interior Department to decide within 16 days whether polar bears should be listed as a threatened species because of global warming."The science is perfectly clear. There's no dispute. The Polar Bear is an endangered species," Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity, the lead author of the petition submitted in 2005, said.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken agreed with conservation groups that the department missed a Jan. 9 deadline for a decision. She rejected a government request for a further delay and ordered it to act by May 15.
The Interior Department has refused to make a decision after a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in December 2006, to list the Polar Bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because of the loss of Arctic sea ice due to climate change.

Summer sea ice shrank last year to a record low, about 1.65 million square miles in September, nearly 40 percent less ice than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000. Some climate models have predicted the Arctic will be free of summer sea ice by 2030.

An earlier report on this subject is available here.
LABELS: CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, CLIMATE CHANGE, DIRK KEMPTHORNE, ENDANGERED SPECIES, ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL WARMING, INTERIOR DEPARTMENT, POLAR BEAR, POLITICS, REUTERS, SIERRA CLUB, SCIENCE, USFWS