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The day after the Obama administration rejected a proposal for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- a move widely, if cautiously, applauded by environmental groups and advocates of renewable energy -- a new report highlights the destructive impact of fossil fuel consumption in the United States. The report, called Fueling Extinction: How Dirty Energy Drives Wildlife to the Brink, highlights the top 10 US species whose survival is most threatened by the development, extraction, transportation, and consumption of fossil fuels.

The report itself does not shy away from pointing its finger directly at the profit-driven aspect of the fossil fuel industry, nor its dependence on taxpayer-funded subsidies:

The animals (and one plant) highlighted by the group range from the relatively unknown and small Tan Riffleshell, a freshwater mussel found in only five rivers in the eastern US, to the large and majestic Bowhead Whale, believed to be among the oldest mammals on earth and the only whale that lives exclusively in arctic waters.  The other eight species examined in the report include: the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, the Graham’s Penstemon (a wildflower), the Greater Sage Grouse, the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, the Kentucky Arrow Darter, the Spectacled Eider, the Whooping Crane, and the Wyoming Pocket Gopher. Receiving the 'activist's choice award' from the voting members was the Polar Bear, chosen because it was "the species they were most concerned about."