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Time to take a stand on climate change? Alaska legislators want information to determine a strategy on responding to climate change actions and the use of the ESA in AK Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The stakes are high and the rhetoric climbing in the debate between those who want to apply the Endangered Species Act for the protection of wildlife potentially threatened by a warming climate, and those who question this type of protection as inappropriate and a threat to legitimate economic activity.
And in the latest twist in this particular issue, the Alaska Legislature is planning to schedule a conference that will enable the state to determine how to respond to attempts to list as threatened or endangered an increasing number of sea-ice-dependent Arctic species, and to help establish a policy position for the state’s response to the climate change debate.
The Legislative Council, the legislature’s administrative body, has issued a request for proposal, seeking a firm or individual to coordinate the conference and then steer a public relations campaign designed to follow up on the conference results, with funding coming from two separate $750,000 state budget appropriations, both related to in-state climate change impacts, John Bitney, aide to Sen. John Harris, the chairman of the Legislative Council, told Petroleum News Jan. 4. The council anticipates holding the conference in March or April.
The RFP gives only very general guidance on the objectives of the conference, with the intention that the Legislative Council will evaluate what the different bidders propose, Bitney said.
Different perspectives The concept of the conference is that experts with different perspectives on the climate change question will provide information to legislators about the facts relating to the climate-change debate, Eddie Grasser, staff to Rep. Harris and organizer of the conference initiative, told Petroleum News Jan. 5.
“I think it behooves the legislative process for legislators to hear from both sides and then determine for themselves on public policy issues which side is telling the truth,” Grasser said.
The Earth’s climate continuously changes and a number of scientists say that factors other than human activity are involved in current climate trends — one group of scientists has obtained data suggesting that global warming relates to changes in solar activity, Grasser said. And the listing of the polar bear as threatened under the terms of the Endangered Species Act, on the basis that receding Arctic Sea ice threatens the bear’s future, flies in the face of data indicating that polar bear populations across the Arctic are higher now than they were 30 years ago, thus raising the specter of listing any species anywhere that might be adversely impacted by a warming climate, Grasser said.
Inappropriate tool Some Alaska legislators think that the Endangered Species Act is an inappropriate tool to address climate change and that the ESA needs some restructuring to ensure that it “does something for endangered species” and is not just being used on speculation that an animal is under a climate-change threat, Grasser said. In fact a prime purpose of the proposed conference will be to help develop a strategy in support of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials who want to work with their counterparts in other states on the ESA question, he said.
“They’re trying to get all 50 fish and wildlife agencies in each state to sign on to an agreement to recommend some technical changes to the Endangered Species Act,” Grasser said.
And another outcome of the conference may be a legislative recommendation for action by the governor, together with a proposed appropriation for that action, he said.
The state administration, concerned about the possible impact of the polar bear listing on economic activity in the state, has already sued the U.S. Department of the Interior over the listing — in a lawsuit filed in 2008 the state contended that, overall, the polar bear population is healthy and that federal officials have not considered the scientific evidence regarding the bears’ ability to survive and adapt to changing climate conditions.
Strong objections And on Dec. 30 the state filed strong objections to Interior’s designation of most of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, together with barrier islands and much Beaufort Sea coastal land, as polar bear critical habitat, a designation issued as a follow-up to the listing of the bear.
“By law, a critical habitat designation should balance the concern for the species with consideration for economic impacts,” said Attorney General Dan Sullivan. “That has not been done here. Moreover, the designation should cover only those areas actually necessary for special protection.”
“While the service has yet to provide an economic study of the impacts from its proposed decision, major oil and gas exploration and development efforts will, at best, be delayed by this designation,” said Gov. Sean Parnell. “The service’s overly broad critical habitat designation simply means more projects must jump through more regulatory hoops. Neither Alaska nor our nation can afford these job killing moves, nor can we remain so dependent on other nations for our energy supplies.”
Need for protection But the Center for Biological Diversity, the environmental organization at the center of moves to apply the Endangered Species Act to species perceived to be under threat from climate change, remains adamant that protection of biological diversity can be reconciled with economic well-being. Rebecca Noblin, a staff attorney with the center, told Petroleum News Jan. 6 that the move by the state Legislature to question climate change science and the related use of the Endangered Species Act, and actions by the state administration against the polar bear listing, are wasting the state’s money.
The impacts of climate change are already apparent in Alaska, she said.
“It certainly would be a wiser use of our money to figure out how we’re going to address that, rather than fighting the science. I’d say it’s a losing battle,” Noblin said.
Referencing U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports issued in December, Noblin said that the science indicates that polar bear populations are in decline (those reports say that the southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population is in decline and that the Chukchi Sea-Bering Sea population is believed to be following a similar trend).
Although it is important to tackle climate change on several fronts, it is also necessary to use the Endangered Species Act for its prime purpose, the protection of imperiled species from whatever threatens them, Noblin said.
And there is really no disagreement in the scientific community about greenhouse gas emissions being the root cause of global warming, she said.
But what about the economic consequences of environmental protection?
“People are trying to sort of create a false dichotomy between environmental health and economic health,” Noblin said. “We are going to have to move away from fossil fuels. Now is the time to look at other options. There are certainly a lot of ways to both stimulate the economy and produce clean energy, and we should be looking in that direction.”
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