Another federal judge reins in an out-of-control federal agency.
“A federal judge in Alaska has thrown out a plan designating more than 187,000 square miles as habitat for threatened polar bears. U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline, in a written order dated Thursday, said the designation was too extensive and presented ‘a disconnect between the twin goals of protecting a cherished resource and allowing for growth and much needed economic development.’ He sent the matter back to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to correct “substantive and procedural deficiencies.” [Huffington Post]
It’s still worse than it appears.
“threatened polar bears”
It is a made up/bogus status. Polar bears are THRIVING.
And people complain about ‘activist judges’ who don’t just stick to the written word.
It’s possible for a species to have a growing population and still be endangered — grizzlies of the Yellowstone in their early recovery, for example. The evidence we have, though, is that polar bears have a healthy population throughout their US range. Polar bears deal with changes in their sea ice ranges every year and surely some starve or drown every year but those losses are part of the normal Arctic ecology.
The EPA is the handmaiden (one could say the b–ch) of the environmental groups that sue it and it always has been. Conflict of interest much?