Supreme Court declines polar bear case

The Supreme Court of the United States has declined to take up a court case in which a number of organizations have appealed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s designation of critical habitat for the polar bear. In a May 1 order the court denied a petition to hear the case, thus causing a Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit opinion upholding the habitat designation to stand.

Fish and Wildlife issued the polar bear critical habitat designation in November 2010, following the 2009 listing of the animals as threatened under the terms of the Endangered Species Act. The designation covered 187,157 square miles, including a vast offshore area; barrier islands and spits; and polar bear denning habitat along Alaska’s northern coast.

Worried about the possible impact of the habitat designation on economic activity, organizations including the state of Alaska, the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, the American Petroleum Institute, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope appealed the designation in federal court.

The federal District Court in Alaska rejected the critical habitat designation in a 2013 ruling. But in February of this year the 9th Circuit reversed that decision, upholding Fish and Wildlife’s broad view that critical habitat should include all territory containing critical habitat features, and not just land that the bears currently use. In June the 9th Circuit declined a request by the appellees to hold an en banc hearing in the case. The appellees subsequently requested the Supreme Court to pick up the case, a request that has now been denied.

- ALAN BAILEY