Polar Bear Habitat Receives Record Number of Bids

Polar Bear Habitat Receives Record Number of Bids

Lawsuit to Stop Sell-off of Millions of Acres of Polar Bear Habitat



On January 31 the Center for Biological Diversity and allies took the Bush administration to court over its plan to sell 30 million acres of prime polar bear habitat for oil and gas development in the Chukchi Sea. The action comes in response to the administration's fast-tracking of oil lease sales as it delays a final Endangered Species Act listing decision for the polar bear.



The lawsuit maintains that the administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act in approving the oil lease sales off Alaska's coast in the Chukchi Sea.


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By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
February 06, 2008

Royal Dutch Shell was the highest bidder for leases in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast. The federal Minerals Management Service will take about 90 days to review bids.

The Minerals Management Service received a record number of bids for oil and gas exploration in the Chukchi Sea on Wednesday, land that is home to 20 percent of the world's polar bears.

Environmental groups have challenged the sale. They say the Bush administration delayed classifying the polar bear as an endangered species until the sale could be completed. The official deadline for classification was Jan. 9, 2008, but the Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to make a decision.


Robin Cacy, public affairs officer for the Minerals Management Service, told Cybercast News Service that the lease received 667 bids and the final lessee will be announced by 3 p.m. Alaska Standard Time.

"Companies have expressed a great deal of interest in the Chukchi Sea area," she said. "The area has got the potential for a large number of reserves for oil and gas, and I believe industry is interested in looking for that resource for the nation," she said.

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) told Cybercast News Service: "The domestic oil and natural gas this region can provide for the American people is significant. With an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the Chukchi lease sale has the potential of significantly reducing our growing dependence on foreign sources of energy from the Middle East and Venezuela."

"This significant source of domestic energy has justifiably received an extremely large amount of interest with a record number of bids being submitted to the Minerals Management Service for an Alaskan OCS sale," he said.

"The administration has taken a significant step toward helping our nation address the national security problems associated with an over-reliance on foreign governments for energy, and this will provide a major stimulus to our national economy," Young added.

Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, however, said, "The companies that are bidding are on notice that we believe the sale is being conducted illegally because a lawsuit has been filed challenging that sale."

She told Cybercast News Service that her organization filed a lawsuit last week to contest the sale.

"We don't think they should have held the sale," she said. "We don't think the sale should go forward until they fully analyze the environmental impacts, and that hasn't been done.

"Once they hold the sale it's very likely that changing their minds will involve a very expensive buyout by the taxpayers, and there is no reason for that," said Siegel. "There is no legal deadline for the sale, but there is a legal deadline for the polar bear finding, and they are missing that deadline."

Cacy, however, noted that the litigation could not change results of the sale.

"Selling off our natural heritage to the highest bidder is a sad spectacle and represents a step backwards in our efforts to save the irreplaceable Arctic and the magnificent polar bears for future generations," said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), in a statement.

"We already know the future of the polar bear in the arctic is tenuous due to global warming," said Margaret Williams, WWF's director of the Bering Sea Program.




Cybercast News Service. "There is a concerted attempt to block all new oil production. I think it's promising that they've actually been able to push this one through. I think it's important that they keep opening up these offshore places until Congress opens up ANWR," the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.




Photos by Urso Branco