We think Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne could teach EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson a few things about time management, as Kempthorne managed to make his recommendation today that polar bears are threatened by climate change a full 24 hours before federal courts required him to release his decision.

This is the first time an animal as been protected by the Endangered Species Act due to climate change. Businesses were concerned that the polar bear listing would be the first step in the federal government regulating CO2 emissions, but Secretary Kempthorne seemed to anticipate this and addressed the issue in his comments at a press conference today:

"While the legal standards under the ESA compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting. Any real solution requires action by all major economies for it to be effective. That is why I am taking administrative and regulatory action to make certain the ESA isn't abused to make global warming policies."

Thank you for that clarification, Dirk. We were under the assumption that since polar bears are now listed as threatened that the Earth would stop warming and ice would stop melting and Dodos would be brought back from extinction.

Kempthorne also said the US is working with Canada, which has not officially considered the animals to be in danger, as our northern neighbors are home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears. He also promised to issue new regulations regarding the Endangered Species Act to "prevent abuse of this listing to erect a back-door climate policy outside our normal system of political accountability."

Considering that most of the progressive climate policies we have seen in the past seven years have come as a result of lawsuits against the federal government, we guess the "normal system" the Secretary is referring to is the Courts...where we're sure we'll see the forthcoming regulations being challenged soon enough.