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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Native groups worried about
losing tax revenues and royalties from oil development filed a
lawsuit Friday challenging the federal government's designation of
critical habitat for threatened polar bears on the state's oil-rich
North Slope.


      The Arctic Slope Regional Corp., North Slope Borough, Inupiat
Community of the Arctic Slope and other groups took issue with the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to designate more than
187,000 square miles - an area larger than California - as critical
habitat for the bears, part of the recovery plan required by law
for a species declared threatened or endangered.


      The Department of the Interior is also named in the lawsuit,
which says the government's designation "will not address the
primary threat to polar bears, the loss of sea ice due to climate
change."


      The financial burden of the designation to the state, the North
Slope Borough and the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. - a regional
Native corporation - could reach in the billions of dollars,
plaintiffs said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.


      Even a one-year delay in production for a fairly small oil field
could mean losing millions in tax revenues and royalties, according
to plaintiffs, who said Native stakeholders would be affected
because the revenues are shared. ASRC and other regional Native
corporations own lands affected by the designation, the lawsuit
said.


      "My biggest concern is how this will affect our communities and
local economies," North Slope Borough mayor Edward Itta said in
the announcement. "The only thing this designation accomplishes is
to create another threatened species - the people who live here."


      The critical habitat designation, announced last November,
includes large areas of sea ice off Alaska's coast, including
places where petroleum companies hope to drill in the Chukchi and
Beaufort seas. 


The designation doesn't automatically block
development but requires federal officials to consider whether a
proposed action would adversely affect polar bear habitat and
interfere with its recovery.


      Polar bears were declared a threatened species in 2008 by the
Interior Department under former President George W. Bush because
of diminishing sea ice. Polar bears use sea ice to hunt and breed.


      Environmentalists say polar bears need a reduction in greenhouse
gases that cause climate warming. The Fish and Wildlife Service can
address climate change, attorney Rebecca Noblin of the Center for
Biological Diversity said. 


The center and two other conservation
groups last month filed to intervene in the lawsuits and Noblin
said there were plans to intervene in the suit by the Native
groups.


      "Oil and gas development is an additional stress on polar
bears," she said. "If we can minimize the impacts of oil and gas
development, that gives struggling polar bears a better chance of
surviving the loss of sea ice."


      The Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't comment on active or
pending litigation, agency spokesman Bruce Woods said.


      Friday's suit follows federal lawsuits filed in March by the
state and the Alaska Oil and Gas Association over the habitat
designation.


      The state also has challenged the designation of polar bears as
a threatened species. That lawsuit, filed two years ago, is pending
before a federal judge in Washington, D.C.

Gallery

Scientists: It's not too late yet for polar bears

Slideshow: Polar bears in a warming world

Environmental News

Alaska Native groups worried about
losing tax revenues and royalties from oil development filed a
lawsuit Friday challenging the federal government's designation of
critical habitat for threatened polar bears on the state's oil-rich
North Slope.

Native groups sue over polar bear critical habitat

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