Reuters: The United States has missed its own postponed deadline to decide if polar bears need protection from climate change, and critics link the delay to an oil lease sale in a vast swath of the bear’s icy habitat. "When it comes to the survival of the polar bear, the Bush administration is putting the ‘dead’ back into ‘deadline,’" said Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who heads a House of Representatives panel on climate change. "Now that the Bush …