Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne did what he had to do when he listed the polar bear as a threatened species. The threat is obvious. Steady, rapid shrinking of the Arctic ice denies the bear the hunting and denning areas it needs to survive in Alaska.

If the Bush administration could have found a way to avoid the listing -- to deny the science that documents this threat -- it would have done so. This is not a group of politicians who like using environmental laws to restrict development. The Bush administration held onto the polar bear issue as long as it could, until forced to act by a federal court.

Anti-environmental groups will sue to undo the polar bear listing. They aren't likely to succeed, though -- unless conservative activist judges annoint themselves as polar bear experts and throw out the science done by real scientists.

Read entire article...