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Facing danger: the polar bear

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Fists raised in Arctic fight

The US government must decide first if polar bears are threatened by climate change before it opens part of their habitat to oil drilling, the head of a congressional environment panel said.

The decision whether to list the species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act was supposed to happen last week but was postponed for up to 30 days.

That means it could come after the government offers 29.4 million acres in the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast in a sale of oil leases on 6 February.

"Rushing to allow drilling in polar bear habitat before protecting the bear would be the epitome of this administration's backward energy policy, a policy of drill first and ask questions later," Republican Ed Markey said at a hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which he chairs.

Testifying on the matter were two key Bush administration officials: Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service that has been investigating the polar bear's status, and Randall Luthi, director of the Minerals Management Service, which announced the oil lease sale last week, Reuters reported.

World polar bear populations are currently stable, but US scientists predict that two-thirds of them could be gone by 2050 if predictions about melting sea ice hold true. Polar bears live and hunt on sea ice; when it melts they either drown or are forced onto land, where they are inefficient hunters.

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