WASHINGTON (May 15, 2008) - In response to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s decision to gut the polar bear’s threatened status, Reps. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y. introduced legislation yesterday that will give the species meaningful protections from global warming and oil and gas activity. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., introduced a similar bill in the Senate earlier this year.
The Polar Bear Seas Protection Act (H.R. 6057) directs DOI to designate critical habitat areas for the polar bear and requires vast improvements in oil spill technology before massive oil and gas activity would be allowed in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, also known as the Polar Bear Seas. The bill ensures that the polar bear is protected from oil and gas activity – which Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne explicitly said yesterday would not be affected by the polar bear’s ESA listing.
“While the listing was a long overdue recognition of scientific reality, the administration included a poison pill by ruling out the one thing that would make it meaningful: an effective policy on stopping global warming. It’ll be business as usual for oil and gas development, which will put polar bears at greater risk from potential spills, onshore infrastructure and disturbances, not to mention, will continue emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing the melting of sea ice in the first place,” said Inslee, prime sponsor of the Polar Bear Seas Protection Act. “This bill will help fill the vacuum of administration leadership by providing important protections for polar bears and their habitat.”
“The Bush administration continues to ignore the very serious consequences of its addiction to drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive areas,” Hinchey said. “While listing the polar bear as a threatened species is better than nothing, it is far too little and comes far too late. Given this administration’s infatuation with giving away public land for oil drilling, I'm convinced the polar bear listing is a farce that will continue to mean business as usual for the oil industry. The fact of the matter is that things won't get better for the polar bear or, for that matter, humans, until we stop leasing acres of polar bear habitat for drilling and finally shift our emphasis away from oil and other fossil fuels and towards solar and other forms of renewable power. In the interim, the Polar Bear Seas Act will help put measures in place to temporarily safeguard polar bears from any additional, direct harm from energy development.”
Approximately 30 million acres in the Polar Bear Seas were made available for oil and gas leasing in February – just weeks after missing a legally mandated decision to make a decision on the polar bear listing. DOI plans to offer up a total of 73 million acres through 2012. Seismic activity is already planned for this summer.
“The DOI has said that not only is there is a 40 percent chance of a major oil spill in the Chukchi Sea, but such a spill would pose significant risks to the polar bear population. This is a disaster the oil companies do not have the technology to deal with. Despite this looming threat, Secretary Kempthorne is leaving the polar bear out in the cold,” said Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League. “Once again, Kempthorne is shirking his responsibility as a steward of our land by putting oil industry interests first.”
The legislation also would direct the National Research Council to identify missing biological information needed to study impacts of oil and gas development on species in Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the face of climate change.
“We are very glad that the first step has been taken to list the polar bear, but it's essential now to address all the factors that may stress this species, and offshore petroleum development is surely one of those,” said Margaret Williams, Managing Director, World Wildlife Fund’s Alaska Office. “It makes no sense to proceed with activities in the Chukchi when critical habitat hasn’t even been designated - a key requirement of the Endangered Species Act.”
“As pressure to develop oil and gas in the Arctic increases, so does the threat of climate impacts for polar bears, as well as many other species that depend on polar ice for their survival,” said Eleanor Huffines, Director of The Wilderness Society’s Alaska Regional Office. “If we really want to save the polar bear, as well as the larger Arctic ecosystem, we need to have full protections in place that restrict the kinds of activities that contribute to habitat loss and degradation.”
“Listing the polar bear as threatened and then sending oil drills into its home is like diagnosing a patient with lung cancer and then handing him a lit cigarette,” said Athan Manuel, Director of Lands Protection at the Sierra Club. “This bill is a necessary intervention that does what the Bush administration has refused to do. It offers real action, not just words, to protect polar bears from global warming and oil drilling.”
