Green~Mammy
06-24-2008, 12:59 AM
*We talked about this in Biology class today along with the impact it might mean for the Polar Bears and the ecosystem, and the fact that the rest of the world is trying to prevent just this situation from happening. In other words the rest of the world is trying to figure out how to save the Polar Bears.
Bush calls for offshore drilling
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Mr Bush asks Congress to lift the ban
President George W Bush has called on Congress to end a 27-year ban on drilling for oil in US coastal waters, to reduce dependence on imports.
Mr Bush said existing restrictions on offshore drilling were "outdated and counter-productive".
His move comes as US consumers are calling for action to tackle high oil prices that have pushed prices at the pump to more than $4 (£2) a gallon.
US energy needs are set to be a key issue in November's presidential poll.
This is the culmination of the failed Bush-Cheney energy policy of the last eight years
Kassie Siegel
Climate programme director at the Center for Biological Diversity
Republican John McCain favours offshore oil drilling, whereas his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, opposes it.
In a news conference at the White House, Mr Bush told Congress there was "no excuse for delay" in lifting the ban.
"Families across the country are looking to Washington for a response," he said.
Environmentalists have reacted with alarm to Mr Bush's call, arguing that off-shore drilling would take at least a decade to have any effect on oil supply and would exacerbate climate change.
US dependence
Since 1981, a congressional moratorium has prohibited oil and gas drilling along the east and west coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, an area accounting for some 80% of the US's Outer Continental Shelf.
OFFSHORE OIL
Estimated reserves:
18bn barrels of recoverable oil
77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
US annual energy usage:
7.6bn barrels of oil
21 trillion cubic feet of gas
Source: US interior department
Mr Bush's father, George Bush, imposed a moratorium on coastal oil exploration in 1990.
Since then offshore drilling and exploration have only been allowed in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico regions plus parts of Alaska.
The federal bans were enacted in part to protect tourism and lessen the chance of oil spills washing on to beaches.
The Democrats, and some Republicans who represent coastal states, oppose ending the moratorium.
"We are in this situation because of our dependence on traditional petroleum-based oil," said California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.
He advocated "new technologies and new fuel choices for consumers" instead.
Mr Bush, who has repeatedly pushed for an end to the ban, has accused Democrats of using their control of Congress to undermine attempts to boost domestic oil production.
The president also renewed his call on Wednesday for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to be opened up to drilling.
'Failed policy'
"It's cynical to say that we can drill our way out of this mess," Athan Manuel, director of lands protection for the Sierra Club, told Reuters news agency.
"The solution to $4 gas [petrol] is not off our coast."
Kassie Siegel, climate programme director at the California-based Center for Biological Diversity, condemned the Bush offshore initiative.
"This is the culmination of the failed Bush-Cheney energy policy of the last eight years," she told the BBC News website.
"It would do absolutely nothing for petrol prices because it would take at least a decade to produce any oil and even if the oil did flow, there would be the greenhouse gases from the additional fossil fuel development."
She points out that the US government recently calculated there was a 33-51% chance of a major spill in the lifetime of an offshore oil and gas lease in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska.
Such a spill, defined as a release of 1,000 barrels or more from a platform or pipeline, could affect bowhead whales, polar bears and other wildlife.
However, the government's environmental impact statement concluded that "an area affected by such a spill relative to the size of the Chukchi Sea decreases the likelihood that the resources would be widely contacted by the spill".
'Political posturing'
Senator McCain, the Republicans' presumptive presidential candidate, is opposed to opening up Alaska and had previously backed the moratorium on drilling in coastal waters.
John McCain's drilling U-turn suggests he grasps... that this election will be won or lost on the price of a gallon of gas
Justin Webb
BBC North America editor
But speaking in Houston on Tuesday, Mr McCain called for the ban to be lifted to help counter US dependence on foreign oil.
"We must take control over our own energy future and become once again the master of our fate," he said.
Mr McCain said the US had enormous energy reserves and was acquiring methods of using them in clean and responsible ways.
Senator Obama dismissed Mr McCain's call as "political posturing".
"His decision to completely change his position and tell a group of Houston oil executives exactly what they wanted to hear today was the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades," Mr Obama said.
He called for conservation and the search for alternative green energy supplies.
Analysts say drilling for offshore oil and developing alternatives will both prove slow to reduce US dependence on imported oil.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7460767.stm
Published: 2008/06/18 21:33:05 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7460767.stm
Bush Administration Grants Oil Companies Legal Protection in Polar Bear Habitats
Saturday , June 14, 2008
AP
WASHINGTON —
Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.
The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years.
Environmentalists said the new regulations give oil companies a blank check to harass the polar bear.
About 2,000 of the 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic live in and around the Chukchi Sea, where the government in February auctioned off oil leases to ConocoPhillips Co., Shell Oil Co. and five other companies for $2.6 billion. Over objections from environmentalists and members of Congress, the sale occurred before the bear was classified as threatened in May.
Polar bears are naturally curious creatures and sensitive to changes in their environment. Vibrations, noises, unusual scents and the presence of industrial equipment can disrupt their quest for prey and their efforts to raise their young in snow dens.
However, the Fish and Wildlife Service said oil and gas exploration will have a negligible effect on the bears' population.
"The oil and gas industry in operating under the kind of rules they have operated under for 15 years has not been a threat to the species," H. Dale Hall, the Fish and Wildlife Service's director, told The Associated Press on Friday. "It was the ice melting and the habitat going away that was a threat to the species over everything else."
The agency made no secret that oil and gas operations would continue in polar bear territory when it announced May 14 that melting sea ice threatened the creature's survival. But Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne assured the public that the bear population would not be harmed.
"Polar bears are already protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which has more stringent protections for polar bears than the Endangered Species Act does," Kempthorne said.
Environmentalists already suing the agency over its determination that the bear's threatened status cannot be used to regulate global warming gases said Kempthorne's earlier assurances were misleading.
"Now, three weeks later, Interior issues a rule under the act that we view as a blank check to harass the polar bear in the Chukchi Sea," said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. He added that his group believes the new regulations are illegal.
Exploring in the Chukchi Sea's 29.7 million acres will require as many as five drill ships, one or two icebreakers, a barge, a tug and two helicopter flights per day, according to the government. Oil companies will also be making hundred of miles of ice roads and trails along the coastline.
"We are poorly equipped to address those risks and challenges," said Steven Amstrup, one of the foremost experts on polar bears and a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center. "To assess what the impacts are going to be, we should know more about the bears."
Last year, the Marine Mammal Oversight Commission, an independent government oversight agency, told the Fish and Wildlife Service it lacked the information to conclude that exploration will not affect the bear population.
The seven companies will be required to map out the locations of polar bear dens, train their employees about the bears' habits and take other measures to minimize clashes with them. In exchange, the companies are legally protected if their operations unintentionally harm the bears. Any bear deaths would still warrant an investigation and could result in penalty under the law.
"These rules are essentially an insurance policy," said Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, an industry group that in 2005 requested the new regulation. "They say if you conduct your operations in accordance to the requirement in this rule, you will not be held liable for the take of the bears."
Administration and industry officials said oil companies enjoyed similar status in the Chukchi Sea from 1991 to 1996 and in the Beaufort Sea since 1993 and there was no effect on polar bear populations.
There is no evidence of a polar bear being killed by oil and gas activities in Alaska since 1993, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 1960, when the hunt for oil and gas began in Alaska, only two fatalities of polar bears have been linked to oil and gas activities in the state, the service said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,367015,00.html
Bush calls for offshore drilling
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Mr Bush asks Congress to lift the ban
President George W Bush has called on Congress to end a 27-year ban on drilling for oil in US coastal waters, to reduce dependence on imports.
Mr Bush said existing restrictions on offshore drilling were "outdated and counter-productive".
His move comes as US consumers are calling for action to tackle high oil prices that have pushed prices at the pump to more than $4 (£2) a gallon.
US energy needs are set to be a key issue in November's presidential poll.
This is the culmination of the failed Bush-Cheney energy policy of the last eight years
Kassie Siegel
Climate programme director at the Center for Biological Diversity
Republican John McCain favours offshore oil drilling, whereas his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, opposes it.
In a news conference at the White House, Mr Bush told Congress there was "no excuse for delay" in lifting the ban.
"Families across the country are looking to Washington for a response," he said.
Environmentalists have reacted with alarm to Mr Bush's call, arguing that off-shore drilling would take at least a decade to have any effect on oil supply and would exacerbate climate change.
US dependence
Since 1981, a congressional moratorium has prohibited oil and gas drilling along the east and west coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, an area accounting for some 80% of the US's Outer Continental Shelf.
OFFSHORE OIL
Estimated reserves:
18bn barrels of recoverable oil
77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
US annual energy usage:
7.6bn barrels of oil
21 trillion cubic feet of gas
Source: US interior department
Mr Bush's father, George Bush, imposed a moratorium on coastal oil exploration in 1990.
Since then offshore drilling and exploration have only been allowed in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico regions plus parts of Alaska.
The federal bans were enacted in part to protect tourism and lessen the chance of oil spills washing on to beaches.
The Democrats, and some Republicans who represent coastal states, oppose ending the moratorium.
"We are in this situation because of our dependence on traditional petroleum-based oil," said California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.
He advocated "new technologies and new fuel choices for consumers" instead.
Mr Bush, who has repeatedly pushed for an end to the ban, has accused Democrats of using their control of Congress to undermine attempts to boost domestic oil production.
The president also renewed his call on Wednesday for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to be opened up to drilling.
'Failed policy'
"It's cynical to say that we can drill our way out of this mess," Athan Manuel, director of lands protection for the Sierra Club, told Reuters news agency.
"The solution to $4 gas [petrol] is not off our coast."
Kassie Siegel, climate programme director at the California-based Center for Biological Diversity, condemned the Bush offshore initiative.
"This is the culmination of the failed Bush-Cheney energy policy of the last eight years," she told the BBC News website.
"It would do absolutely nothing for petrol prices because it would take at least a decade to produce any oil and even if the oil did flow, there would be the greenhouse gases from the additional fossil fuel development."
She points out that the US government recently calculated there was a 33-51% chance of a major spill in the lifetime of an offshore oil and gas lease in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska.
Such a spill, defined as a release of 1,000 barrels or more from a platform or pipeline, could affect bowhead whales, polar bears and other wildlife.
However, the government's environmental impact statement concluded that "an area affected by such a spill relative to the size of the Chukchi Sea decreases the likelihood that the resources would be widely contacted by the spill".
'Political posturing'
Senator McCain, the Republicans' presumptive presidential candidate, is opposed to opening up Alaska and had previously backed the moratorium on drilling in coastal waters.
John McCain's drilling U-turn suggests he grasps... that this election will be won or lost on the price of a gallon of gas
Justin Webb
BBC North America editor
But speaking in Houston on Tuesday, Mr McCain called for the ban to be lifted to help counter US dependence on foreign oil.
"We must take control over our own energy future and become once again the master of our fate," he said.
Mr McCain said the US had enormous energy reserves and was acquiring methods of using them in clean and responsible ways.
Senator Obama dismissed Mr McCain's call as "political posturing".
"His decision to completely change his position and tell a group of Houston oil executives exactly what they wanted to hear today was the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades," Mr Obama said.
He called for conservation and the search for alternative green energy supplies.
Analysts say drilling for offshore oil and developing alternatives will both prove slow to reduce US dependence on imported oil.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7460767.stm
Published: 2008/06/18 21:33:05 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7460767.stm
Bush Administration Grants Oil Companies Legal Protection in Polar Bear Habitats
Saturday , June 14, 2008
AP
WASHINGTON —
Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.
The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years.
Environmentalists said the new regulations give oil companies a blank check to harass the polar bear.
About 2,000 of the 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic live in and around the Chukchi Sea, where the government in February auctioned off oil leases to ConocoPhillips Co., Shell Oil Co. and five other companies for $2.6 billion. Over objections from environmentalists and members of Congress, the sale occurred before the bear was classified as threatened in May.
Polar bears are naturally curious creatures and sensitive to changes in their environment. Vibrations, noises, unusual scents and the presence of industrial equipment can disrupt their quest for prey and their efforts to raise their young in snow dens.
However, the Fish and Wildlife Service said oil and gas exploration will have a negligible effect on the bears' population.
"The oil and gas industry in operating under the kind of rules they have operated under for 15 years has not been a threat to the species," H. Dale Hall, the Fish and Wildlife Service's director, told The Associated Press on Friday. "It was the ice melting and the habitat going away that was a threat to the species over everything else."
The agency made no secret that oil and gas operations would continue in polar bear territory when it announced May 14 that melting sea ice threatened the creature's survival. But Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne assured the public that the bear population would not be harmed.
"Polar bears are already protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which has more stringent protections for polar bears than the Endangered Species Act does," Kempthorne said.
Environmentalists already suing the agency over its determination that the bear's threatened status cannot be used to regulate global warming gases said Kempthorne's earlier assurances were misleading.
"Now, three weeks later, Interior issues a rule under the act that we view as a blank check to harass the polar bear in the Chukchi Sea," said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. He added that his group believes the new regulations are illegal.
Exploring in the Chukchi Sea's 29.7 million acres will require as many as five drill ships, one or two icebreakers, a barge, a tug and two helicopter flights per day, according to the government. Oil companies will also be making hundred of miles of ice roads and trails along the coastline.
"We are poorly equipped to address those risks and challenges," said Steven Amstrup, one of the foremost experts on polar bears and a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center. "To assess what the impacts are going to be, we should know more about the bears."
Last year, the Marine Mammal Oversight Commission, an independent government oversight agency, told the Fish and Wildlife Service it lacked the information to conclude that exploration will not affect the bear population.
The seven companies will be required to map out the locations of polar bear dens, train their employees about the bears' habits and take other measures to minimize clashes with them. In exchange, the companies are legally protected if their operations unintentionally harm the bears. Any bear deaths would still warrant an investigation and could result in penalty under the law.
"These rules are essentially an insurance policy," said Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, an industry group that in 2005 requested the new regulation. "They say if you conduct your operations in accordance to the requirement in this rule, you will not be held liable for the take of the bears."
Administration and industry officials said oil companies enjoyed similar status in the Chukchi Sea from 1991 to 1996 and in the Beaufort Sea since 1993 and there was no effect on polar bear populations.
There is no evidence of a polar bear being killed by oil and gas activities in Alaska since 1993, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 1960, when the hunt for oil and gas began in Alaska, only two fatalities of polar bears have been linked to oil and gas activities in the state, the service said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,367015,00.html