4-17-09 Washington, D.C.: A federal appeals court threw out plans to expand off shore drilling in Alaska today. The court sided with environmentalists, ruling that a Bush administration plan opening drilling in Alaska's Chukchi and Beaufort Seas failed to consider impacts on marine life and the environment. The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are home to roughly one-tenth of the world’s polar bears, as well as walruses, seals and whales.
Statement of Sierra Club Lands Director Athan Manuel
President Bush’s plan to drill in the sensitive Chukchi and Beaufort Seas ignored science. The plan didn’t consider the serious threat drilling would pose to America’s polar bears, whales and walruses. We’re pleased to see the court recognize that plans to drill overlooked very serious threats to marine mammals.
Polar bears already face an enormous hurdle as global warming is melting the sea ice where they live and raise their young. The last thing they need is the added threat of oil spills and industrial drilling development.
There is no way to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic’s broken sea ice. It would only take one spill to devastate the area’s marine life and the Alaska native communities who rely on the seas for survival.
We don’t need to open wild and special places like the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas to drilling. Instead, we should be investing in the kind of clean energy that will create good jobs, combat global warming, and position America as a global leader in the new clean energy economy.
Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming 110th Congress
Chairman Edward J. Markey: 12/11/2008
From global warming to water quality to endangered species to clean air, the Bush administration is pushing harder than ever to advance its anti-environmental agenda by rescinding, changing, or issuing rules, with negative consequences for our natural resources, environment, and America’s energy policy.
A panel of environmental and regulatory experts discussed the ramifications of these last-minute rulemakings at a hearing on December 11, 2008 before Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
The Select Committee recently released a report detailing these frightening possible significant regulatory rule changes by the Bush administration in its final days. The report is entitled “Past is Prologue: For Energy and the Environment, the Bush Administration's Last 100 Days Could Rival the First 100” and is available HERE.
OPENING STATEMENT: Chairman Edward J. Markey.
WITNESS LIST and TESTIMONY:
Mr. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman, Waterkeeper Alliance.
Ms. Jamie Rappaport Clark, Executive Vice President, Defenders of Wildlife.
Mr. John Walke, Clean Air Director, Natural Resources Defense Council.
Mr. Jeffrey R. Holmstead, Partner, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP