Bush Administration Will Offer Oil Leases In Prime Polar-Bear Habitat

Grist.org:

The U.S. Interior Department's Minerals Management Service plans to offer offshore oil and gas drilling rights to 29.7 million acres of Alaska's Chukchi Sea. The area is home to one of two U.S. polar bear populations; interestingly enough, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- also a part of the Interior Department -- is within days of deciding whether to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. "The polar bear is in need of intensive care, but with this lease sale the Bush administration is proposing to burn down the hospital," says clever analogizer Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity. Environmentalists and some congressfolk had asked the MMS to delay the lease sale plan for at least three years; its failure to do so, says Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), is "the height of irresponsibility and short-sightedness."

Read the whole story: Grist.org

Comments

[StephenSmoliar]

I have posted my own "modest proposal" in response to this news at:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/01/knut-we-need-you.html

[getoffmedz]

It's too late. According to BBC this morning, BP is already drilling their exploratory wells there.

Global oil concerns come first to this vile administration, everyone else is "just numbers."

To Bush/Cheney you are all just scum!

And y'all voted for them, TWICE!

[ljsfolly]

I am so deeply hurt/offen­ded/angere­d/sickened etc by the very idea of bush offering up what he should not have the opportunity nor right to offer anyone land in the fragile habitat for the polar bears. He continues to amaze me in his blatent stupidity about what is happening in our world and the ideas he has about the endless supply of oil/land and polar bears. He hasn't seen the ice break off in state size chunks. He hasn't seen the bears stranded out on melting minature ice islands too far away from shore to swim. He reminds me of a sociopath person I once met. He has no idea of the damage he has wrought upon our world and the way he is looked at by not only us but the world. His goal is to go into the history books as a war president with such massive writings of the wonderful job he has done. I doubt that he ever realizes the reality of what he has done to all living things while president. I guess it to be the lining of all the pockets including his and darth cheney that will tell the tale...

[Gary47]

Hey, we got about 12 months left. Let's go harass the polar bears!

When this is all over, Bush's picture will be in the dictionary under "Pathetic".

[SmolderingRuin]

There is no limit to my hatred for this "man".

[loki]

I guess Bush figures if the polar bears are going to be all gone in the next 50 years do to global warming [ which he publicly ignores] might as well drill up their homes. After all, even when the ice is all gone, you can still drill. And you cant make obscene profits off of polar bears, so who cares about them anyway. Besides, Bush figures that there's polar bears in the zoo.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Too bad there isn't a Center For Getting Off Our Asses And Developing Viable Energy Alternatives At The Same Rocket Pace We Utilize For Trashing On The Oilboyz...­that'd be kind
of wordy, though, and hard to put on a sign,
and it'd solve the problem, and then biological
diversity wouldn't be threatened, and you'd
have to get that day-job...­instead of filing
suit against everybody for everything etc...
politics sure seems to be lucrative, but not
nearly as science-based as it could be, at
least not honest science, or effective implementation of science, of course when
you're talking about multi-million dollar
stipends and stuff, how much intellectual
honesty do you honestly expect, honestly?
This environmental stuff IS all on the up-and-up
and stuff, right? Right? Hello? Caller, are you
there, caller, hello? Hello?

[wadenelson1]

Screw the planet. Screw the polar bears. Drill everywhere there could possibly be oil. Keep the SUV's running. America's counting on it and Exxon shareholders deserve the additional profits.

[mrcontinental]

Are the polar bears at risk of foreclosure as well? Dubya and company have no shame.