Obama Adopts Bush’s Polar Bear Extinction Plan

From an e-mail sent by the Center for Biological Diversity:

In a supremely disappointing — and, for polar bears, life-threatening — move last Friday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced he would endorse a Bush policy condemning the polar bear to extinction instead of rescinding the rule as requested by Congress. Salazar ignored hundreds of thousands of citizen petitions — more than 94,000 of them from Center for Biological Diversity supporters — plus letters from scores of lawmakers, 44 law professors, more than 130 conservation organizations, and more than 1,300 prominent scientists. The rule specifically exempts greenhouse gas emissions from Endangered Species Act review even though global warming is driving the polar bear extinct.

"Salazar's decision today is a gift to Big Oil," declared the Center's Biodiversity Program Director Noah Greenwald. We're already in court fighting the bad polar bear rule and will soon press for an injunction to bar its use.

There's a petition here, if anyone's interested.