Re: There's no need to 'save' the polar bear

On Feb 16, 11:11 am, jose <josefsop...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
There's no need to 'save' the polar bear

By BEN LIEBERMAN

Exxon used to encourage motorists to ''put a tiger in your tank.''
Well, a different animal may begin influencing traffic soon. Polar
bears could force drivers to shell out even more money for gasoline.
Why? Because environmental groups are pushing to list the polar bear
as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, and the Bush
administration is considering their demands.

It might make sense -- if the polar bear were endangered. But the
worldwide population of these bears has more than doubled since 1965,
to an estimated 20,000-25,000 today. Far from being threatened, by all
accounts the bears are thriving.

So what's behind the push to ''save'' the bears? A desire to ban
energy exploration in much of Alaska, and a threatened species tag is
just the ticket to make it happen.

Once a species is listed, its ''critical habitat'' is broadly defined
to include vast areas. The government then drafts a ''recovery plan''
that often contains onerous restrictions on economic activity inside
the habitat and, in some cases, even outside it, trumping property
rights in the process. Plus, environmental groups can sue to force the
Interior Department to include additional restrictions.

The first victim of a polar-bear listing would be new oil and natural
gas production throughout Alaska and in its surrounding waters. The
listing would end any chances of opening up a small part of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, estimated to contain 10 billion barrels of
oil -- enough to offset nearly 15 years worth of current imports from
Saudi Arabia.

That's a problem, because Alaska is America's last best frontier for
domestic oil and natural gas. Closing off these potential resources
would jack up energy prices for decades to come and make us even more
dependent on imports.

It's true that legislative proposals to open ANWR have faltered in
Congress, but a polar-bear listing would be the nail in the igloo. And
other promising onshore areas could also be restricted.

The fact that extensive oil drilling has been under way for decades in
Prudhoe Bay and elsewhere in Alaska without harm to polar bears and
other Arctic wildlife is something that should sway federal
bureaucrats, but probably wouldn't.

It gets worse. The rationale for listing the polar bears as
endangered, after all, is that carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use
contributes to global warming and thus harms the bears. Well, having
them listed as a threatened species could give the government the
authority to shut down new power plants, factories or just about any
fossil energy-producing or energy-using entity in the United States.

That scenario may seem far-fetched, but it's precisely the kind of
sweeping controls environmental activists have long hoped to achieve
through climate-change legislation. So far lawmakers -- wisely -- have
been unwilling to pass laws banning carbon dioxide. Yet polar-bear
protections would give environmentalists a way to use courts to force
a regulatory end-run around congressional and White House inaction.

Ironically, being listed might hurt polar bears. After all, Alaska's
economy depends on energy production; without it, the state's
successful environmental programs, including those that have helped
boost bear numbers, wouldn't be well funded. Plus, red tape unspooled
by the feds could actually slow these programs and jeopardize their
continued success.

If environmentalists want to push their agenda at the cost of ever-
higher gasoline prices, they should at least do so honestly. Misusing
the Endangered Species Act is wrong. The Bush administration should
decline to list the polar bear as a threatened species.

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No need to save Republicans either. Send them to the arctic to live in
relative peace and harmony with the Polar bears.
.

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