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Politics

: The Gavel

Chairman Markey on Bush Administration Polar Bear Ruling

By Jesse Lee

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From the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming:

Markey: Polar Bear Told to Sink or Swim
Bush Admin. Gives Gift to Big Oil, Short Shrift to Polar Bear, Says Chairman

WASHINGTON (May 14, 2008) ? Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which held a hearing on the plight of the polar bear and has pushed for the listing of the bear, reacted today to the decision of the Bush administration to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming. The administration included exemptions to the decision, however, that won’t allow the needed reductions of global warming pollution and will allow oil drilling to continue in a major polar bear habitat.

Below is the statement of Chairman Markey:

“If the Bush administration is forcing the polar bear to sink or swim, how can they be trusted to save humankind from global warming?

“After years of delay, the Bush administration was forced to face the reality that global warming has endangered the polar bear and that the polar bear needs to be placed on the Endangered Species Act.

“But the administration has also simultaneously announced a rule aimed at allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic to continue unchecked even in the face of the polar bear’s threatened extinction.

“Essentially, the administration is giving a gift to Big Oil, and short shrift to the polar bear.”

Watch highlights of the Select Committee hearing on polar bears:

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.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on May 14, 2008 (boomark / email).