cuz polar bears don't have enough problems

[Guest guest]

Bush administration will offer oil leases in prime polar-bear habitat

 

The U.S. Interior Department's Minerals Management Service plans to offer

offshore oil and gas drilling rights to 29.7 million acres of Alaska's Chukchi

Sea. The area is home to one of two U.S. polar bear populations; interestingly

enough, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- also a part of the Interior

Department -- is within days of deciding whether to list the polar bear as

threatened under the Endangered Species Act. " The polar bear is in need of

intensive care, but with this lease sale the Bush administration is proposing to

burn down the hospital, " says clever analogizer Brendan Cummings of the Center

for Biological Diversity. Environmentalists and some congressfolk had asked the

MMS to delay the lease sale plan for at least three years; its failure to do so,

says Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), is " the height of irresponsibility and

short-sightedness. "

 

 

sources: Reuters, Associated Press, The New York Times

 

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Confucius