Dirk Kempthorne

The federal Marine Mammal Commission has recommended that Pacific walrus be listed as threatened or endangered, citing threats to the marine mammal from the loss of sea ice they rely on for foraging and giving birth. The recommendation comes as the U.S....

Alaska's only U.S. representative has introduced legislation to delist polar bears as a threatened species. Republican Don Young says in a prepared statement that listing an animal as threatened despite its increasing populations is absurd and...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans refused to allow a vote Wednesday on the nomination of Chuck Hagel to lead the Defense Department, staging the first filibuster against a president’s choice to head the Pentagon since the agency was created.  ...

WASHINGTON – On the eve of a Senate committee vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to lead the Pentagon, a group of Republican senators continued Monday to threaten what would be a historic filibuster for a Cabinet appointment despite warnings...

A U.S. District Court on Thursday upheld a Bush-era decision that polar bears are a threatened species, despite challenges by the state of Alaska and others seeking to strip the bear of its protection. Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the......

WASHINGTON — A federal judge is ordering the Obama administration to review whether polar bears, at risk because of global warming, are endangered under federal law. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan wants the Interior Department to clarify a George W....

Just as President Obama faces a Congress that promises to be more skeptical of climate-related environmental regulation, a federal court has tossed a controversial case back in his lap: the polar bear. The bear was the first species to be......

ANCHORAGE — An environmental group on Thursday gave formal notice that it intends to sue the federal government for what conservationists consider a failure to protect critical habitat for polar bears from harmful oil and gas development. The Center...

ANCHORAGE — The federal plan for designating more than 187,000 square miles as polar bear critical habitat is too large and will lead to huge, unnecessary costs for Alaska's petroleum industry, opponents of the proposal told the U.S. Fish and......

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Polar bear policy in America can be summed up succinctly: The iconic bears are threatened with extinction, and so far nothing much is being done. Two years after they were listed under the Endangered Species Act, the......

Former President George W. Bush’s interior secretaries defended their record of promoting offshore drilling Tuesday at a hearing before a congressional committee investigating the catastrophic gulf oil spill. "If regulations on the books and industry...

The Interior Department on Wednesday designated the polar bear as threatened with extinction because of shrinking sea ice, making it the first creature added to the endangered species list primarily because of global warming. The designation under the...