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 Endangered Species Act requires the agency to identify critical habitat to be protected and to form a strategy to assist the bear population's recovery.

But the department also issued special rules designed to exempt from the law offshore oil and gas drilling in prime polar bear habitat off Alaska's north coast.

Moreover, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced he was taking a series of steps to short-circuit legal plans by conservation groups to use the polar bear's protected status to block new power plants and other sources of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming.

He said listing the polar bear as threatened "should not open the door to use the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants and other sources. That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the Endangered Species Act. The ESA is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy."

Dale Hall, director of the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service, said the law was intended to preserve species and their habitats from localized threats such as filling wetlands, felling trees and development. He cast doubt on whether far-flung conditions, such as emissions from tailpipes, feedlots and smokestacks around the globe, could be directly linked to the shrinking sea ice.

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