AlaskaWild Update #273 - January 24, 2008
- Rep Markey’s Select Committee Holds Hearing on Polar Bears and Drilling Plans
- The Sun Has Risen in the Arctic; Let the Sun Set On Bad Drilling Ideas
- Taking Alaska Wilderness to Sundance Film Festival
Rep Markey’s Select Committee Holds Hearing on Polar Bears and Drilling Plans
On Thursday, January 17, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing to investigate the Bush administration’s backwards policies affecting the polar bear and its arctic habitat. Over the past seven years, the administration has consistently favored industry interests over the environment and wildlife. Their recent stance on the polar bear however, has revealed new levels of irresponsibility and hypocrisy.
On February 6, the Bush administration is set to hold Chukchi Lease Sale 193 and offer nearly 30 million acres of important polar bear habitat to the oil and gas industry. The announcement of this lease sale came just days before the administration made another controversial move. For over a year, the administration has considered listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, a designation that would offer federal protections to the polar bear and its melting arctic habitat. Once Lease Sale 193 was scheduled however, the administration announced that it would delay making its decision on the polar bear listing, a decision scheduled by law for January 9. With the delay, it is now likely that the polar bear’s fate won’t be known until oil companies already have rights to drill in 30 million acres of polar bear habitat.
News outlets around the world have noted the ironic convenience of these two administrative decisions. Joining a large collection of papers ranging from the New York Times to the Winston-Salem Journal to the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle editorialized on the issue today. While requesting that the polar bear’s habitat remain free from oil rigs, the paper criticized the administration’s “lame” reasons for postponing the listing decision as “excuses for the corrupted science and industry favoritism that characterizes the Bush team’s approach to the environment.”
The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), also noted the convenience of the decisions. During its hearing last week, committee members sharply questioned two top administration officials. Dale Hall, director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Randall Luthi, director of the Minerals Management Service, both defended the administration’s decisions claiming that they had taken adequate steps to protect the bears. They made these claims with a straight face despite being reminded several times of the Department of Interior’s own environmental impact statement for the lease sale that determined drilling would result in a 33 – 51 % chance of a major oil spill of more than 1,000 barrels of oil. And according to leading scientists, coming into contact with oil can be lethal to polar bears, due to their grooming habits.
Thankfully, Rep. Markey is seeking to fix the administration’s backwards approach. Joined by Reps Larson (D-CT), Hinchey (D-NY) and Inslee (D-WA) as original cosponsors, Markey introduced legislation immediately following last week’s hearing that would force the administration to rule on the polar bear listing before it could proceed with Lease Sale 193. Please take action and urge your member of Congress to cosponsor this commonsense and significant legislation.
The Sun Has Risen in the Arctic; Let the Sun Set On Bad Drilling Ideas
By Chuck Houston and Christianne Hinks, Albuquerque, NM
Last Friday, January 18, the sun rose over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the first time in 2008. On the Coastal Plain, safe in their dens, Polar Bear cubs are nursing, not yet aware of the changing world they will encounter when they emerge with their mothers in the spring. In the foothills a muskox scraping shallow snow for sedges might grunt in recognition of that cold light and the promise it brings. The arctic wolves hunting on the tundra may raise their voices to celebrate their pack and its place in the world. Across the country, activists are calling members of Congress to speak about the Arctic Refuge and why it has such a hold on our hearts.
The 19.5 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge comprise the only conservation area that protects the full range of arctic and sub-arctic ecosystems - a balance that has allowed wildlife to flourish. From the south side of the Brooks Range north to the Beaufort Sea, the Refuge offers more wildlife diversity than anywhere else in arctic Alaska – and the tundra of the Coastal Plain is its most biologically productive area.
The fate of the Coastal Plain (commonly referred to as the 1002 area) has been the subject of a long and bitter dispute over oil development. Despite misleading and fanciful tales of the limited and even beneficial impact from the existing pipeline and extensive infrastructure, common sense has prevailed.
Arctic Wilderness bills have been introduced in both houses of Congress. While the current president would likely veto any Arctic Refuge Wilderness bill that reached his desk, there is still the opportunity to build support for these important pieces of legislation now. Help us celebrate the return of the sun to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by contacting your members of Congress. Urge your representatives to sponsor HR 39 and your senators to sponsor S 2316. Let them know that the fate of the Arctic Refuge is still on their constituents’ minds and should be addressed during upcoming election campaigns.
Taking Alaska Wilderness to Sundance Film Festival
By Kristen Miller, Legislative Director, Alaska Wilderness League
Last week, just a few hours after watching Chairman Markey grill administration officials about their decision to move forward with a massive oil and gas lease sale in key polar bear habitat, I hopped aboard a plane to head to Park City, Utah to take part in the annual Sundance Film Festival. My goal was to educate the celebrity masses about the plight of the polar bear and the other important work of the Alaska Wilderness League taking place in Alaska, Washington, DC and around the country. After arriving in Salt Lake City, I joined the roughly 45,000 other people headed east to descend upon Park City, more than tripling the population of this small Utah ski town nestled in the Wasatch Mountains.
Alaska Wilderness League was invited to participate this year in the Alive Expo Green Pavilion, a suite of ‘earth friendly’ business and organizational displays that were made available to Sundance participants, from actors to producers to media, as a means of familiarizing these high profile clients with various sustainable products and conservation efforts. For three days I shared a hotel suite with a group of cool, like minded participants, including League Board Member Diane MacEachern, who was promoting her new book, The Big Green Purse, which urges women to use their consumer clout to sustain the environment & themselves.
Together we played host to a steady stream film industry high rollers with whom I was able to share information and materials about the League and our work. The list of green-curious visitors included Bill Pullman, Paul Mitchell, Elle Fanning, members of Collective Soul, and Miss U.S.A. Ideally, participation in this effort will succeed in raising the profile of Alaska Wilderness League within the entertainment community, which, in turn, has the ability to further raise the profile of our issues to millions of television and film aficionados around the world. Furthermore, both Diane and another participant, Olympic Paint - which is a commercially available paint containing no Volitale Organic Compounds - have offered to auction off items from the event (a celebrity signed gift bag and celebrity Olympic Paint hand prints) with all proceeds going to benefit of the League. Our deep appreciation goes out to them.
