The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service has announced that early next month it will sell oil and gas leases on nearly 30 million acres of prime polar bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea.
Meanwhile, the department's Fish and Wildlife Service has postponed a long-awaited decision on whether to place this iconic animal on the list of threatened species.
The interior secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, could do the polar bear a favor by ordering a timeout and halting the lease sales for at least a year.
That would give his scientists more time to assess the threats to the bear and other fragile wildlife. The department could also use the time to figure out how and where drilling may safely proceed, if at all.
There is no urgency to lease Alaskan waters. President George W. Bush's suggestion that new oil production will bring short-term relief at the pump is nonsense, since oil fields take years to develop. It is urgent to help the bears.
Uh, how about Canada where most of them live anyway?
If there's any animal more adaptable than polar bears name one, they're only "threatened" down here, and there are more than enough of them throughout the greater polar landmass to perpetuate their species. The melting ice pack is a greater threat to the bears than anything we do.
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That would give his scientists more time to assess the threats to the bear and other fragile wildlife
Nothing about the polar bear or anything else that survives in some of the harshest lands on earth can be described as fragile.
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Two populations of polar bears occur in Alaska: the Southern Beaufort Sea population which is shared with Canada and the Chukchi/Bering seas population which is shared with Russia.
What does drilling for oil have to do with changes in ice formations?
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Good move on the Goverment. Let's get these leases sold and drilled in.
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I think you left out qoutes that show how one sided this article is.
Although Congress and the courts have largely frustrated the Bush administration's efforts to open up Alaska to oil and gas drilling, Vice President Dick Cheney and his industry friends remain determined to lock up as many oil and gas leases as they can before the door hits them on the way out. They are certainly not going to let the struggling polar bear stand in their way.
and
These two moves are almost certainly, and cynically, related. Listing the polar bear as threatened would trigger a range of protective actions. Delaying that listing gives the Department of Interior just enough time to move ahead with the lease sales without having to deal with the bear while avoiding an embarrassing squabble.
The listing delay was announced on a Sunday night, when few people were paying attention. H. Dale Hall, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the oil companies would have to comply with any eventual listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.
and the rest of the article.
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Although Congress and the courts have largely frustrated the Bush administration's efforts to open up Alaska to oil and gas drilling, Vice President Dick Cheney and his industry friends remain determined to lock up as many oil and gas leases as they can before the door hits them on the way out. They are certainly not going to let the struggling polar bear stand in their way.
The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service has announced that early next month it will sell oil and gas leases on nearly 30 million acres of prime polar bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea.
Meanwhile, the department's Fish and Wildlife Service has postponed a long-awaited decision on whether to place this iconic animal on the list of threatened species.
These two moves are almost certainly, and cynically, related. Listing the polar bear as threatened would trigger a range of protective actions. Delaying that listing gives the Department of Interior just enough time to move ahead with the lease sales without having to deal with the bear while avoiding an embarrassing squabble.
The listing delay was announced on a Sunday night, when few people were paying attention. H. Dale Hall, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the oil companies would have to comply with any eventual listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.
But once the companies stake their claims, it would be hard to stop disruptive exploratory drilling. The delay also gives the political appointees at the Interior Department time to craft a listing decision that magically excludes the oil companies from having to do much to protect the bear.
With the possible exception of Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, everyone agrees that the polar bear is in deep trouble. The U.S. Geological Survey predicts that two-thirds of the world's polar bears, and all of Alaska's, will be gone by mid-century. While the overwhelming threat is the loss of sea ice, caused in large part by global warming, invading that habitat with oil rigs would surely increase the stress on the animals.
The interior secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, could do the polar bear a favor by ordering a timeout and halting the lease sales for at least a year.
That would give his scientists more time to assess the threats to the bear and other fragile wildlife. The department could also use the time to figure out how and where drilling may safely proceed, if at all. There is no urgency to lease Alaskan waters. President George W. Bush's suggestion that new oil production will bring short-term relief at the pump is nonsense, since oil fields take years to develop. It is urgent to help the bears.
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Oil and the polar bear
