Last month, the Bush administration declared polar bears a threatened species because of global warming. This month, the administration gave permission for companies to ‘annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas,’ the Associated Press reported Saturday. The article reported the Fish and Wildlife Service as having already issued regulations for legal protection of seven oil companies with a provision that only ‘small numbers’ of polar bears and Pacific walruses be harmed in the process. ‘The oil and gas industry in operating under the kind of rules they have operated under for 15 years has not been a threat to the species,’ H. Dale Hall, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s director, told The Associated Press on Friday. ‘It was the ice melting and the habitat going away that was a threat to the species over everything else.’ Environmental groups already filed notice earlier this month that they planned to sue the federal government for not imposing harsher regulations for oil development in the polar bear habitat, Reuters reported. ‘The only thing keeping pace with the drastic melting of the Arctic sea ice is the breakneck speed with which the Department […]