.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

WELCOME GLENN BECK VIEWERS!

April 3, 2008

Posted by Matt Dempsey matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov 6:26pm ET

WELCOME GLENN BECK VIEWERS!

Do you want to keep up to date on Senator Inhofe's efforts to combat global warming alarmism? Be sure to read the Inhofe EPW Press Blog or subscribe to the Inhofe EPW Press email list. See also the U.S. Senate Report released December 20, 2007, “Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007” - LINK

Senator James Inhofe was a guest on Glenn Beck’s television show tonight discussing the possible listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Liberal special interests are working hard to turn the ESA into global warming law, which one former Reagan appointee in charge of ESA listings said would cause ESA to become a “regulatory monster” and what Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) said would cause “legal chaos.”

Here is what Senator Inhofe wants you to know – and what liberals don’t – about the polar bear.

Polar Bear stats:

Worldwide polar bear population numbers are at or near all-time highs
The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that there are currently 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears.
In the 1950s and 1960s, estimates were as low as 5,000-10,000 bears.
According to Canadian scientists 11 of the 13 bear populations are stable, some are increasing.
Canada is home to 2/3 of the world’s polar bears
Like all species, polar bears have and can adapt to habitat changes
Researchers discovered an ancient polar bear jaw that dates back more than 100,000 years, to a time far warmer than the present.

The Polar Bear is Already Protected Under the::

Marine Mammal Protection Act
Several international conservation treaties including the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears and the US-Russia Polar Bear Conservation and Management Act of 2006
As well as conservation, education and outreach agreement with native peoples.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Regulation:

This is not about the bears. Special interests are trying to use the ESA to achieve global warming policy that they can’t achieve through the legislative process.
But the ESA cannot reverse climate change.
If you want to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the name of reversing climate change, then be up front about it. Let’s go to the Senate floor and have a debate, take votes on a climate change bill
Don’t sneak in through the back door through litigation-driven ESA listings and try to turn the Fish and Wildlife Service into air pollution regulators.
But this is what these groups want to do
At the hearing on Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity essentially stated that they want to use Section 7 of the ESA to regulate greenhouse gases wherever they occur
These groups also made it clear they want to use the polar bear to stop oil and natural gas production, not only in Alaska but wherever it occurs

More Information:

U.S. Senate Minority Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This report details the scientists debunking polar bear endangerment fears and features a sampling of the latest peer-reviewed science detailing the natural causes of recent Arctic ice changes. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts. (LINK)

Impact: New York Times Features EPW Polar Bear Report

The New York Times reported this week on the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) Minority report debunking fears of polar bear extinction. John Tierney's January 31 article, titled "Polar Bears and Seer Suckers," called the EPW Minority's report "persuasive at debunking the predictions of polar bears going extinct this century."

Tierney noted that polar bear extinction fears are "being stoked to build support in the U.S. for listing them as a ‘threatened' or ‘endangered' species even though it's not clear that their overall numbers are declining." (LINK) Tierney noted that the EPW Minority's polar bear report featured "one very hard piece of evidence that casts doubt on the doomsday predictions: a polar bear jawbone that appears to be at least 110,000 years old, meaning that polar bears have survived eras with considerably warmer temperatures than today." [Note: For more on the discovery of an ancient jaw bone which "confirms the polar bear was a morphologically distinct species at least 100,000 years ago" and thus survived past warming periods, see - LINK]

Polar Bear Pandering By Debra Saunders (San Francisco Chronicle)

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California delivered a speech in the Senate last week in which she linked global warming to the San Diego wildfires, Darfur, the imminent loss of the world's polar bears and even a poor 14-year-old boy who died from "an infection caused after swimming in Lake Havasu," because its water is warmer. Forget arson. Forget genocide. Forget nature. There is no tragedy that cannot be placed at the doorstep of global-warming skeptics. Oh, and there's no need to acknowledge that the regulations or taxes necessary to curb emissions by a substantial degree might damage economic growth. According to Boxer, laws to curb greenhouse gases - this country would have to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half over 12 years to meet the latest international community goals - will do good things for the American economy and create lots of jobs. It's Nostradamus Science wedded to Santa Claus economics. It is rhetoric such as Boxer's - an odd combination of the-end-is-near hysteria and overly rosy economic scenarios - that keep me in the agnostic/skeptic global-warming camp. Boxer and Sen. James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that Boxer chairs, have been engaging in a running debate on global warming. Last month, Inhofe took on the Al Gore suggestion that polar bears are in peril because of global warming. Inhofe pointed to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services estimates that show the polar bear population at about 20,000 to 25,000 bears - up from the estimated 5,000 to 10,000 polar bears in the 1950s and 1960s.

Canadian Survey Reveals Polar Bears Populations Increasing - Nearly Tripled Since 1980's By Don Martin (National Post)

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Their status ranges from a "vulnerable" to "endangered" and could be declared "threatened" if the U.S. decides the polar bear is collateral damage of climate change.

Nobody talks about "overpopulated" when discussing the bears' outlook.Yet despite the Canadian government 's $150-million commitment last week to fund 44 International Polar Year research projects, a key question is not up for detailed scientific assessment: If the polar bear is the 650-kilogram canary in the climate change coal mine, why are its numbers INCREASING?

Many Agree Polar Bears Should Not Be Listed As Threatened Under ESA

EPW FACT OF THE DAY February 7, 2007

FACT: Many Canadian indigenous peoples, international governments and conservation groups clearly agree with Dr Foote’s position that the polar bear should not be listed. The following comments below were submitted by groups during the US Fish and Wildlife Service petition process regarding the listing of the polar bear: Inuvialuit Game Council (Represents the collective Inuvialuit interest in wildlife and wildlife habitat) "Sound polar bear populations all overlap the ISR ("Inuvialuit Settlement Region"). These populations of polar bears have helped sustain the Inuvialuit for generations to do so. Currently, these populations are healthy and thriving … we can see no justification for up-listing polar bears to ‘threatened status’ under the U.S. Endangered Species Act … "at this point in time, there is not enough information to say that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct due to predicted shift in climate … Due to our close relationship with these populations, we, along with other user groups, would be the first to see signs of trouble and we would make sure, through the co-management system, that appropriate management actions are taken to ensure the sustainability of these populations."

INHOFE SPEECH ON POLAR BEARS AND GLOBAL WARMING

January 4, 2007

Mr. President, I rise today to address the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s recent action to begin formal consideration of whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Over the next year, the Fish and Wildlife Service will examine scientific and commercial data regarding the health of the polar bear population and evaluate the presence of any threats to its existence. The question that the Fish and Wildlife Service must answer is: Is there clear, scientific evidence that current worldwide polar bear populations are in trouble and facing possible extinction in the foreseeable future? As the Fish and Wildlife Service reviews the issue over the next year, I feel confident they will conclude as I have, that listing the polar bear is unwarranted. In the proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledges that for seven of the 19 worldwide polar bear populations, the Service has no population trend data of any kind. Other data suggest that for an additional five polar bear populations, the number of bears is not declining and is stable. Two more of the bear populations showed reduced numbers in the past due to over hunting, but these two populations are now increasing because of hunting restrictions.

POLAR BEAR POLITICS (THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL) JANUARY 3, 2007; PAGE A12

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."

Related:

INHOFE DISCUSSES NUCLEAR ENERGY WITH GLENN BECK (October 25, 2007)

INHOFE DISCUSSES LOST, GLOBAL WARMING, and WRDA WITH GLENN BECK (October 17, 2007)

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