Polar Bear Paradise

Obama's meek yet seemingly competent sub-department for Wildlife, Parks and the Interior has designated a large chuck of frozen land as 'critical habitat' for polar bears. Green Peace says it will be totally ineffective, so the Republicans will probably call it a huge Overreaction, and say that more study is needed and global warming is probably a Communist Plot. But they won't care for more than a few news cycles.

On a more specific level, if AP's statistic that 96% of the area is arctic sea ice, is even vaguely similar to the truth, I don't see why this should be more than a couple sentences of national debate. The Guardian article has the bobble-head response from an industry lobbyist. Now republicans can do their thing and worry about jobs, and they can also recognize a "duh" situation like this (most of them) and work with Obama to streamline regulations. Simple but well defined rules can be cost effective, especially if we started to put monetary values on things like "the existence of a major mammalian species".

Now I doubt this will happen. More likely is that more right-wing politicians with connections to industry and libertarian ideologies will snipe at this action like they do at almost every action Obama takes. If anything seems to stick in the public's mind, Rush Limbaugh will say it and it will go down in infamy like every other GPTP (Generic Republican Talking Point). If none of the strafing hits, the measure or executive order will probably go through, with industry groups fighting it to the bitter end.