The Department of Interior suffers from a rare form of bipolar disorder called bye-polar disorder. There is one major symptom of this disorder: You list the polar bear as “threatened” because of its melting polar sea ice habitat, but then do nothing to actually protect that polar habitat from its primary threat, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

The disorder is accompanied by an occasional burst of logic, as when the DOI noted:

• The polar bears need sea ice for feeding.
• The sea ice is being destroyed by human-caused emissions, faster than the models had predicted.
• Thus, the polar bear is endangered.

On the other hand, the disorder makes it physically, or at least psychologically, impossible for the patient to take any action based on that burst of logic. The quote in this post’s headline is from the DOI press release’s own subhead (see here and below). Someone will need to explain how producing fossil fuels — whose combustion is destroying the polar bear’s habitat — is consistent with preserving an endangered species.

The disorder is also marked by unintentional bursts of irony, as in the use of the phrase “Rule will allow continuation of vital energy production.” The word ‘vital’ means “Necessary to the continuation of life; life-sustaining.”

Kempthorne said:

“Listing the polar bear as threatened can reduce avoidable losses of polar bears. But it should not open the door to use of the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources. That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA law. The ESA is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy.”

Sadly, doctors say bye-polar disorder is incurable. Worse, since global warming is opening up the Arctic to more fossil fuel drilling, victims of bye-polar disorder tend to suffer a progressively deteriorating condition.

If you want to become an expert on polar bears and their habitat, read the actual 368-page DOI rule here (big PDF). You can see the Wonk Room’s comments here. Sierra Club view here. The full press release is below:

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After years of delay, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne made a landmark decision on whether global warming pollution is regulated by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Kempthorne ruled that the polar bear should be classified as a “threatened species” due to the decline of polar sea ice, critical to its survival. Kempthorne stated:

They are likely to become endangered in the near future.

The Department of Interior, under Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, fought for several years in the courts since 2005 to avoid making a decision on whether the precipitous decline in Arctic sea ice due to global warming is making the polar bear an endangered species. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dale Hall testified in January that there was no significant scientific uncertainty in the endangerment posed by global warming to polar bears — the only legal justification under the Endangered Species Act for a delay.

Kempthone’s decision to follow the science is in marked contrast to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson’s action to override his staff in refusing to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions.

However, Kempthorne also argued vigorously that his decison does not compel the Bush administration to construct a plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, repeating President Bush’s entirely spurious claim that would be a “wholly inappropriate use” of the Endangered Species Act. The Interior news release announces, “Rule will allow continuation of vital energy production in Alaska.” In justifying his declaration that the ESA places no new restrictions on Arctic drilling, Kempthorne claimed that the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) is “more stringent” than the ESA. However, the court ruling that compelled him to issue today’s rule states that “the protections afforded under the ESA far surpass those provided by the MMPA.”

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UPDATE — This MOU’s lame language is completely inconsistent with the Secretary Kempthorne’s announcement today (see here). I guess that is another symptom of bye-polar disorder.

Pity the poor polar bear. Two of the governments who should be most concerned about the survival of the species just signed a pointless “Memorandum of Understanding between Environment Canada and the United States Department of the Interior for the conservation and management of shared polar bear populations.”

As you can see, this high-level May 8 MOU says its purpose is

to provide a framework for the development and implementation of mutually agreeable immediate, interim and long-term actions that focus on specific components of polar bear conservation.

And the MOU says that a key goal is

working to identify key polar bear habitats and developing recommendations for habitat conservation measures.

As we used to say in third grade,

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On the date of the West Virginia primary, CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi appeared throughout the morning and afternoon, waving a lump of coal. In one segment yesterday morning, Velshi described the coal-to-liquids process:

It is a cleaner burning fuel in the end — now I get in a lot of trouble when I say this, because the blogs go nuts on this — I didn’t say coal was clean. I said that the fuel that is derived from coal happens to be a very clean-burning fuel. What happens prior to when it becomes gasoline can be very dirty.

As the Wonk Room reported, on April 25, Velshi said:

You see the signs for clean coal, 99 percent clean. I’m not 99 percent clean when I get out of the shower. . . I just look clean.

And then yesterday afternoon Velshi got excited:

Most people think of coal as a relatively dirty thing. You may have seen the ads on TV for 99.9% clean coal, that’s clean coal technology. Bottom line is people are split on the cleanliness of coal.

Watch it:

There are, in fact, no such ads, because even the coal industry isn’t willing to be that misleading about coal. Velshi seems to be confusing coal propaganda with the classic Ivory Soap slogan, “99 and 44/100% pure.”

Velshi asked for people to email suggestions about what “we should cover when it comes to energy.” Here are a few items not discussed in yesterday’s coalfest on CNN: Read more

A President McCain would have no magic wand to get conservatives to join a cause they simply don’t believe in, much as he wasn’t able to get them to join the cause for his McCain Lieberman climate bill. As E&E News (subs. req’d) reports today:

Several key Capitol Hill Republicans stood defiant yesterday against the types of changes to U.S. global warming policy spelled out earlier this week by presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain….

“I’m going to vote for McCain this year for president, but if he offers that bill I’ll vote against it and work against it,” pledged Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee….

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), who would likely become the lead Republican on the Senate Environment Committee next year if McCain wins the presidency, said he wanted to work on a different type of climate plan that focused first on incentives for new energy technologies.

“We both agree there’s a problem,” Voinovich said. “We have a difference of opinion about how to solve the problem.”

Retiring Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee … “I’m not for that,” Domenici said. “I respect [McCain] greatly. But I think before we’re finished, there’ll be an awful lot of reality added to this.”

That’s a pretty pathetic response, especially when you consider that McCain’s plan is already too watered down to solve the climate problem (see here). Still, it can’t be considered a big surprise given that only 27% of conservatives say human emissions are warming the earth (see “The deniers are winning, especially with the GOP“).

Interestingly, there is at least one conservative who understands the central flaw in McCain’s plan:

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), for example, said he wasn’t so sure McCain got it right in calling for the unlimited use of domestic and international offset projects for industry compliance in a cap-and-trade system. “That’s something that’s very poor public policy and hopefully he’ll evolve on that,” he said

[Note to Corker: Conservatives don't believe in evolution!]

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