Obama sticks with Bush-era polar bear rule

[joeybee12]

Source: MSNBC

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration will retain a Bush-era rule for polar bears, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Friday, in a move that angered activists who noted the rule limits what can be done to protect the species from global warming.

The administration had faced a weekend deadline to decide whether it should allow government agencies to cite the federal Endangered Species Act, which protects the bear, to impose limits on greenhouse gases from power plants, factories and automobiles even if the emissions occur thousands of miles from where the polar bear lives.

"We must do all we can to help the polar bear recover, recognizing that the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change," Salazar said in a statement. "However, the Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation’s carbon emissions.

_______________________________________



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30635672/

---

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Yet another disappointment, yet another cave-in. Change, my ass.

[montanacowboy]

1. Yes, and add the Wolves to this too

This Salazar was an asshole as a Senator and worse now at Interior

Change.........woohoo

[atreides1]

2. That Old Saying

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. OK, then when do we get laws to limit greenhouse gases to save the climate? I'd like those in the

next 60 days and for them to be in affect by 2010.

[ClarkUSA]

6. "US Wants Mandatory Cuts In Greenhouse Gases Across The Globe In Major Environmental Policy Shift”

This is a more direct way of saving the polar ecosystem: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/us-wants-mandatory-cuts-i_n_193112.html

[joeybee12]

14. No, the MOST direct way was to throw out the Bush ruling until if and when

we get mandatory greenhouse gases...BS seems to be the Obama/Salazer way to run things.

[ClarkUSA]

22. And you know this how?

Forcing the shut down of factories throughout America would throw tens of millions of Americans out of work simultaneously,
wreck our economy overnight and throw the world into deep depression. Someone is advocating BS here, but it isn't Team O.

[snowdays]

26. Most of the RW uses those talking points.

[Reterr]

48. I don't buy the American Petroleum Institute's RW bullshit talking points.eom

[imdjh]

58. +1

[SpartanDem]

12. Soon if cap and trade passes

nt

[truebrit71]

4. This REALLY pisses me off....Salazar was absolutely the WORST pick..

...Change?


Really?

:eyes:

[polichick]

8. I agree - this is TOTAL CRAP. Salazar has to go!!!

[lonestarnot]

33. along with about 11 others.

[No Elephants]

35. Only eleven?

[dipsydoodle]

25. Pick

or prick. :shrug:

[quidam56]

5. We voted for change, we will be the change, let your voice be heard !

This is sickening but we can reverse it, we need to contact Salazar's office and let him know this isn't change.

http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[polichick]

9. The members of several environmental orgs have been writing to Salazar...

...about this over the last couple of months ~ it's time to contact the president imo.

[Honeycombe8]

7. Okay....NOW I'm getting pissed. If the W.H. doesn't make changes in the environmental

and animal protection areas....

HEY, WHITE HOUSE: I WON'T BE VOTING FOR YOU IN 2012. If I'm gonna have a W.H. that doesn't protect endangered animals or the environment, I might as well have a government that cuts my taxes to the max and benefits me the most financially. And THAT'S the Republican Party.

So far, I'm voting against my personal interests. Why? FOR PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENDANGERED ANIMALS. If that goes away, so does the reason for my voting against self-interst.

[Reterr]

46. Agreed

I will vote for these people but they won't get any of our hard-earned money or our time if this bullshit.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

50. Voting for Republicans is for voting for your self interest? How?

Republicans authorized torture, lied us into a war, plunged the country into debt for tax cuts...?

And this administration has made changes to environmental policy. Just not *this* change. From this same article:

"Environmentalists complained last week when Salazar failed to address the polar bear rule when he rescinded another Bush regulation involving endangered species consultation — one Congress also authorized to be scrapped."

[Honeycombe8]

52. Well, I'm just upset. BUT...the pro-business Republican philosophy is actually

better for me financially. For example, the pubics raised the amount a worker can contribute to the 401K. OTOH, it was Clinton who ensured that the 401K plans were not mainly for the highly compensated (there are rules that restrict the highly compensated from benefiting a certain percentage over what the normally compensated participants do).

The pubics lower taxes. This helps me.

The Republicans want to enforce the legal immigration laws. This helps me financially (I live in an area burdened financially with a large illegal immigrant population).

They pass laws that help my employer....which means I have a more secure job. This helps me.

They allowed foreign cars to be sold in this country. This has helped me.

There are plenty of things the Republicans do that do NOT help me. In the end, those things (like animal protection and the environment) mean more to me than tax cuts. But if I can't count on the Democrats to be significantly better in those areas, it's harder for me to vote for them, since the other side has my own financial interest pulling at me. (Besides the fact that I just can't stand Republicans, as a general rule. Though there are exceptions.)

But I probably over reacted to this thing. Still...I'm going to be watching these two areas closely. These are among my top priorities.

[OhioChick]

10. All this "change" is killing me. n/t

[DebbieCDC]

11. This sucks beyond belief

Change my fucking ass.

[hamsterjill]

13. My second disappointment with Obama

Where animals are concerned.

Three strikes and he's out.

[Politicalboi]

15. Change my Ass

We also need Obama to look into the ivory trade too.

[HereSince1628]

16. But using labor law to allow torture was appropriate...it's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world

[balantz]

17. I'd like to know just who it was that picked Salazar? THAT person really needs a talking to!

[CountAllVotes]

18. how disappointing

to say the very least!

This is not the kind of "change" I voted for!

:mad:

:kick:

[balantz]

19. So what's the sell out (on the list of sell outs)? Oil exploration in the artic?

Does Exxon/Mobil own a piece of Obamaco?

I'm just trying to figure out the dollar deal here, the reason behind it all thing.

[DemBones DemBones]

20. Meet the new boss. . .

[Lorien]

51. ...same as the old boss. Yep; I can't help but feel the same way

this is NOT the "change" I was told to "hope' for. :-(

[notundecided]

21. And the Yellowstone Buffalo

Watch the video :http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/

[pinniped]

23. Next, they will let fat polluting companies regulate themselves.

This is BS.

[No Elephants]

36. Hey, if it's good enough for banks, investment banks and insurance companies....

[dipsydoodle]

24. BBC has picked up on it too

The US government has opted to retain a Bush-era rule that limits protection for polar bears from the effects of global warming.

Environmental groups had been calling for the rule to be lifted, and the US Congress had given Interior Secretary Ken Salazar the power to do so.

Mr Salazar said lifting the rule would create "uncertainty and confusion".

The rule means the government will act only against threats to polar bears that arise in their Arctic habitat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8040913.stm

I'm disgusted.x(

[katandmoon]

27. Sarah Palin is just delighted!

[No Elephants]

37. Maybe she can shoot some polar bears from her plane. They might suffer less. Does she know how to

field dress them, though?

[ozone_man]

40. Drill baby drill!

Change we can believe in, because it isn't change at all.

[Webster Green]

28. I may never vote in another election.

After years and years of chiding friends and acquaintances for being completely apolitical, I may be joining their ranks in the near future.

If this last election and this president can't produce change, then things really are hopeless. We are fucked! :banghead:

[BobRossi]

31. I went back on my word this past election...

I vowed not to vote for a candidate simply because of their party affiliation, I didn't think Obama had the experience necessary.
I voted for him anyway. I will follow my gut next time.

[No Elephants]

38. "Can't?" Won"T? Don't really want to? Determined not to?

I feel your pain. Once I saw Obama's appointments, I wondered why I went broke during the primary. Not sorry I did the same during the election, though. Whatever is happening, it is not McCain Palin. It is not FDR or HST, but it is not McCain Palin.

[vicman]

29. Grrr...

"We must do all we can to help the polar bear recover, recognizing that the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change,"

Salazar continues to cement his legacy as a lying sack of shit...

[BobRossi]

30. Same guy, new suit.

The similarities to the shrub administration are quite striking indeed.

The more things "change" the more they stay the same.

[closeupready]

32. Calm down, people. He's playing chess - this is part of his super-secret squirrel strategy.

Yoda says, wait, watch and be amazed. :sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

39. I bow my head in awe of the double secret, double backwards sideways strategy. He's

building a consensus. The polar bears will commit suicide.

[Zodiak]

34. Salazar is a conservadem, DLC, corporatist piece of shit

It's obviously he didn't change stripes for the Obama administration.

Funny how these conservadems sit around Congress destroying any hope for progressive change, and then when we finally with the Presidency, they get picked to fuck up any hope for progressive change from the executive branch.

And then, after fucking things up for decades, they can retire and be called "statesmen" and "leaders", chiding us unwashed activists for being "shrill" while we live with the destruction they heaped upon us.

It just makes me sick that we put up with these assholes, and many of us make excuses for them.

[dana_b]

41. "Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. and head of the Senate...

Environment and Public Works Committee, also protested the decision not to use the act to require emissions cuts. "Monitoring the situation will not tell us more than we know now – that the polar bear is threatened and we need to act," she said in a statement."

Yay Barbara!! I wish she would run for pres.

[No Elephants]

42. Good for her.

[snowdays]

43. Barbara--you are the gal. :-)

[IndianaGreen]

44. Too many rightwing and capitalist scum in the Obama Administration

Time for a purge!

[Reterr]

45. Pathetic-if this keeps up Obama will not get a cent from our family next election.eom

[SpartanDem]

47. Yup exactly like Bush

because I remember all the time those times Bush pushed climate change legislation. This was the fourth paragraph of the story which you so conveniently left out and no one bothered to read apparently.


Instead, we need a comprehensive energy and climate strategy that curbs climate change and its impacts – including the loss of sea ice," he added. "Both President Obama and I are committed to achieving that goal."

[SemiCharmedQuark]

49. Read all *FOUR* paragraphs!!? MADNESS!

I'm not happy about this decision, but I swear to god, I'm sick of the "He's the same as BUSH!!!!" bullshit.

People must not have been paying attention at all during the last 8 years.

For god's sake this same story talks about Salazar removing another Bush rule.

[Tim01]

53. Damn shame. I like polar bears.

[imdjh]

57. Then demand that hunting them be stopped

Instead of using them as a ruse to stop power plants in Georgia.

[Tim01]

60. I don't want to see polar bears dissappear all together.

I have no more problem with hunters, whether native or foreign, hunting polar bears, than I do wolves hunting elk or foxes hunting mice. I would like to see them have a healthy, stable population. They can't have a population without a habitat.

[imdjh]

62. That doesn't appear to be on the horizon

It really doesn't. Polar bear numbers are up. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1ea8233f-14da-4a44-b839-b71a9e5df868 Even the expert who challenges those reports, does so in a "well yes, the overall numbers are up BUT.... this group and that group don't appear to be doing well" way. http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/ask-the-experts/population/ The bottom line is that right now, the biggest PROVABLE manmade threat to polar bears is hunting, which I find inexcusable. I also find it inexcusable that people who claim to want to protect polar bears focus on tilting at windmills instead of the clear and present danger.

[Tim01]

63. Ah, well there you go. I thought they were in trouble.

The only thing I know about the polar bears is based on the adds all over the place about how they are dieing off because we are destroying their environment. I didn't know the adds are lies.
I see the adds or whatever which feature pictures of polar bears standing on a little piece of floating ice out in the middle of nowhere. You've probably seen them.

I'm glad to find out they are in good shape. Thanks.

[imdjh]

64. Those ads are disappointing, but they probably do a good job of fund raising

[Bryn]

54. Disappointed

:( I strongly believe in protection for the endangered species and environment. Love polar bears and wolves. I will have to keep on writing and support the Defenders of Wildlife.

[solinvictus]

55. "Meet the new boss...

...same as the old boss!"
Change and hope, hope and change. I hope the polar bears are comfortable with catch phrases.

[imdjh]

56. The CURRENT threat to polar bears is hunting- not sea ice

[Tim01]

65. Hunting kills 3% of the bears. Climate will kill 66% in 50 years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/15/summit-to-save-polar-bear_n_175148.html

Here is the article. Hunting will be banned if the numbers drop like predicted.

[and-justice-for-all]

59. I hope Obama comes to his senses on this...

sooner rather than later.

[Imperialism Inc.]

61. I'm fine with this decision but only because the admin is tackling the problem

on other fronts. Like the administration said we need a comprehensive approach.