Polar Bear Land Leased for Oil and Gas Exploration

As reported here on January 10th, January 14th, and February 3rd the US Fish & Wildlife Service delayed its decision to list the polar bear as threatened until February 8th.

Reuters reported yesterday that The United States has missed its own postponed deadline to decide if polar bears need protection from climate change, and critics link the delay to an oil lease sale in a vast swath of the bear's icy habitat.

"When it comes to the survival of the polar bear, the Bush administration is putting the 'dead' back into 'deadline,"' said Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who heads a House of Representatives panel on climate change...

The Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service was required by statute to decide by January 9 whether the polar bear should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but three days before that, the agency's chief told reporters the deadline would be pushed back 30 days. The second deadline passed on February 8 with no decision.

On February 6, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service sold oil and gas rights across some 29.7 million acres in the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast for a record $2.66 billion -- about four times what the government expected to get.

Goodbye, polar bears.

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