Posted on 07/08/2008 9:43:23 PM PDT by Fred
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Two environmental groups on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn new federal regulations that grants permission to oil companies working in the Chukchi Sea to disturb the polar bears and walrus that live there.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, challenges regulations issued last month by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that allow "incidental takes" of the animals, meaning permission to disturb or accidentally harass them as long as such actions do not result in physical injury or death.
Tuesday's lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment, is the latest volley in legal challenges over protections for polar bears and other animals from expanded oil development in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska.
"It may seem like we're filing a lot of lawsuits," said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director for the center.
"But the fundamental thing is they're all really focusing on the same fundamental issue, which is protecting polar bear habitat in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas."
A spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on Tuesday's lawsuit but defended the incidental-take regulations, which are meant to be in effect for five years.
"We believe that the incidental-take regulations are a valuable conservation tool," said Bruce Woods, spokesman for the service's Alaska headquarters.
Polar bears were listed in May as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and a petition is pending that would give similar protections to the Pacific walrus.
The remote and ice-choked Chukchi, which lies between northwestern Alaska and northeastern Siberia, is emerging as a hot oil prospect.
After many years of scant industry activity, Royal Dutch
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I imagine that the good Governor is prepared to counter these idiots.”
I admire her - she’s got quite a job on her hands with this (uninformed) insanity.
We should take the opposite tack. A ban on any permanent federal ownership of land. Does the constitution allow the central government the right to hold millions of acres in perpetuity?
No?
Then its time for the land to be returned to the states or turned over to private ownership.
She is a fighter, to be certain.
Shouldn’t these clowns be feeding themselves to the Polar Bears rather than causing a footprint??
Man, I wish all these people who don’t read and aren’t informed wouldn’t be allowed to vote, don’t you? Polar bear population at the highest growth in around 50 years, currently off the endangered species list. Town Hall magazine just had an article on it last month.
With this global warming hysteria, third party lawsuits will cause an energy meltdown even if we get a reasonable energy policy with more drilling and more refineries.”
On the other hand, it might greatly elevate our natural gas supply :-)))
I’ve been in that area and the Polar bears don’t even like it.”
yes, if people saw what that northern area (and the few sites of proposed drilling sites) looks like (only about 2,000 acres out of almost 20 million acres), they’d be shocked. Nothing “pristine” here. I have good photos to illustrate the point.
Can you please explain what that lawsuit is? I think it means the polar bares cannot sue so these guys do?
Plus maybe you have a situation where the Sierra Club sues even though it has no members where the suit is filed
Property rights are not recognized in Federal District Court, the only way to challenge the enviroidiots would be for the oil companys involved to challenge the Federal District Court’s authority in the case, and get the suit dropped from Federal Court, then get it in State court where property rights, or mineral rights as then case may be do apply.
So the poor (people that the environmentalists claim to care so much about) can continue to groan under high gas prices.
Keep voting Democrat. :D
Why can’t we sue the environmentalists for causing us pain and suffering? Seems to me we have the same right as they do....their actions are directly affecting each and every one of us.
There is no sane way to deal with the insanity of environmentalist wackos, it is simply time to get serious with them and their enablers, very, very serious.
Time for open season on environmentalist whackos.
Now I am not standing up for any particular interest group, I am just bring one point to the table that no one has addressed. The environmentalist are like a pack of dogs, if they do not have a victim to pursue they will bark and bite each other, or until another victim comes along.
Now let's explore the thought of where can we find more oil. Well I live in southern Montana and I happen to know where there is an abundance of oil is located or let's say a very strong supported idea where it is located.
In the late 1970s and into the early 1980s there was an extreme amount of exploration taking place just about 90 miles northwest of where I live. I was there the day that the geologist stacked the oil drilling rig, Brinkerhoff-Signal Rig 82. At a normal reading on the seismograph the needle barely wiggle (noise from drill bit), but on this day the needles were off the scale, geologist came into the seismo room, turn white as a sheet, and went directly to the driller and instructed him to cut power and trip out of the hole. I took a glance at the log book and saw that the rig was at 5,300 feet.
The rig was moved to another site 22 miles toward the southwest, rig was stacked at 5,900 feet. There was 6 sites that this rig drilled and all holes were within 25 miles of each other and all were 5,300 to 6,000 feet deep. Now it does not take a Phd to figure that one out.
Here is the reason behind this, it is much cheaper to store it under ground, no royalties, everyone gets a tax break, and gives lawyers enough time to tidy up mineral rights.
My belief that there is not an energy crisis, nor has there ever been one, it was just another excuse for oil companies to jack up the price. It is all about putting the screws to the consumer and seeing how much is too much that we will pay. Nothing more nothing less!
MK
These environmental zealots are the reason.
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."Genesis 1:28 ~ Just a few words into the Bible and we know what we should be doing ...
I don’t know what you are saying...the oil companies don’t want to harvest oil?
Last year, or maybe the year before, they sued because they might be disturbing the whales during the natives hunting of them.
They wanted the oil companies to leave the whales alone so the locals could kill them easier.
I hear bear meat is pretty greasy, I would how much biodiesel can be made per bear?
I don’t know what you are saying...the oil companies don’t want to harvest oil?
That would be a first in the 30+ years I’ve been in oil and gas. Yea I’d like to see the looks on my investors faces when I tell them we’ve hit one hell of a zone, but we’re going to sit on it and not produce it. What a BS story. They’d sue me so fast.
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