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As the Bush Administration stalls on saying whether global warming is a threat to health and safety, a leading climatologist says the North Pole could melt for the first time this summer.

Recent data shows most of the ice there now has been formed over the past year.

"We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time," David Barber, a researcher with the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News, which noted thicker ice along Canada's continental shelf would last through the summer months.

The report follows the refusal of the US Court of Appeals in Washington to set a deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether global warming poses a threat.

Seventeen states and many environmental groups asked the court to force a decision within 60 days, but the court declined. Such a finding would allow regulation of greenhouse gases from cars, factories, power plants and refineries.

'Public Input' Sought
"We are pleased the Circuit court recognized the agency's approach," said Timothy Lyons, deputy press secretary for EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. "The advanced notice for proposed rulemaking ... will allow for public input on the broad range of fundamental issues involved in regulating greenhouse gases."

The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 the EPA has the authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act, but President Bush has refused to do so.

In December, the EPA emailed a report to the White House concluding greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and that they should be controlled.But the White House declined to open it.

The EPA is now expected to seek public comment on possible actions that the agency could take under current law but take no position on whether greenhouse gases should be regulated.

"The final decision was that the ramifications of that finding were so profound for the nation, that this administration didn't want to have to confront the inevitable," said Jason Burnett, an EPA associate deputy administrator who resigned over the agency's lack of response to the April 2007 Supreme Court ruling.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.