Global Warming Hearing on Polar Bears
In advance of tomorrow's House Global Warming Committee hearing on the survival of the polar bear and the Bush administration's proposed oil drilling rights sale in a polar bear habitat, Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) has prepared legislation that would compel the administration to protect the polar bear before it allows widespread oil drilling in Alaska.The directors of the two Interior Department agencies--the Mineral Management Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service--responsible for the oil drilling and polar bear decisions, respectively, will appear before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming tomorrow to answer questions on their agencies' handling of these two decisions.
Earlier this month, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would miss the statutory deadline to reach a decision on listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a result of global warming, saying it would take up to a month more to reach the decision. That could put the listing decision after the sale of oil drilling rights in Alaska's Chukchi Sea, scheduled for February 6th. The Chukchi Sea is a sensitive polar bear habitat.
The legislation proposed by Chairman Markey would require that the Interior Department delay the oil drilling rights sale in the Chuckchi Sea until it had made a decision on the polar bear, and had performed it's statutory responsibility of establishing a "critical habitat" for the polar bear.
In the most thorough study to date, an Interior Department scientist, who will appear before the Select Committee tomorrow, determined that under current trends, disappearing sea ice would result in a two-thirds drop in the world population of polar bears resulting in the disappearance of polar bears from Alaska by 2050. One of the population centers considered under the "greatest" threat is the Chuckchi Sea habitat, according to the study.
Watch the hearing live via committee webcast or on C Span 3.
Rep. Jay Inslee (WA-01) questions the witnesses:
| Rep. Inslee: "People are suggesting that there's no clear science about what's happening the Artic, and it's unbelievable to me that people are still adopting the attitude of the ostrich in this situation. One million square miles of the Artic disappeared this summer, that's the size of six Californias - disappeared, stunning the scientific community, that knows that probably about 40 percent of the depth of the Artic has gone AWOL in the last couple of decades. And people who ignore this plain visual evidence, I don't know how we're going to solve our problems as a country if they refuse to recognize this visual evidence. It's not hypothetical, it's not theoretical, it's gone." |
Chairman Markey questions the witnesses:
| Chairman Markey: "In the end, man can adapt, but the bear cannot. We can act to prevent global warming, but the bear cannot. We can develop alternatives to oil, but the bear cannot. When the ice is gone, man cheers about new commercial opportunities for oil and gas drilling; the bear starves and drowns. I have been hoping for common sense from the Department of Interior and Secretary Kempthorne, but I have heard that all-too-common abandonment of common sense here today. We are going to have to redouble our efforts on this committee and in this Congress to head off extinction of the polar bear. If this decision is delayed, in making a determination as to drilling in the Chukchi Sea, we will still be years from the first barrel of oil ever coming from the ocean. But if we get this sequence wrong, in terms of the protection of the polar bear, we will be accelerating the day that the polar bear will be extinct, and I do not think that is something that the American people want to see." |