A senior at Cal State in Los Angeles who belongs to a student group on clean energy challenges Charles Koch, chief executive of Koch Industries, to a debate on Proposition 23, which would indefinitely suspend California’s climate change and clean energy law. Koch Industries and other out-of-state oil companies have backed the initiative with millions of dollars in donations. [It’s Getting Hot In Here]

A federal judge orders the Obama administration to clarify a 2008 decision by the Bush administration that said the polar bear was threatened by global warming but not in imminent danger of extinction. The overall polar bear population appears stable, but disappearing sea ice in the Arctic is widely believed to pose a long-term threat to the species. A “special rule” accompanying the Bush administration’s ruling stated that the Endangered Species Act would not be used to set climate policy, however. [National Public Radio]

Three environmental groups file lawsuits against BP in federal court, charging that the gulf oil spill continues to harm endangered and threatened species. The suits are likely to be rolled into one case that a single federal judge will handle. “Our concern is that the impact on threatened and endangered species is going to continue for a long time after the oil spill is in the news,” a lawyer for the groups says. [The Los Angeles Times]

Extreme drought grips the South and Midwest; in Memphis, which suffered intense flooding earlier this year, just one-hundredth of an inch of rain has fallen this month. [The Wall Street Journal]