15 January 2008
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.
