Feds set aside 'critical habitat' for polar bear

Tacoma News Tribune ^ | 10/22/09 | MATTHEW DALY

[Libertarianize the GOP]

The Obama administration is setting aside 200,000 square miles in Alaska and off its coast as "critical habitat" for polar bears, an action that could add restrictions to future offshore drilling for oil and gas.

Federal law prohibits agencies from taking actions that may adversely modify critical habitat and interfere with polar bear recovery.

Assistant Interior Secretary Tom Strickland called the habitat designation a step in the right direction to help polar bears stave off extinction, recognizing that the greatest threat to the bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change.

The Bush administration last year declared polar bears "threatened," or likely to become endangered, citing the dramatic loss of sea ice in recent decades.

[WellyP]

Bambi, please go pet a Polar Bear!

[devistate one four]

Time for Alaska to ditch the USA!

[Jeff Chandler]

The American voters deserve high gasoline prices. They voted for it.

[eclecticEel]

That’s 30% off the state. The Israelites were only commanded to give a tenth to GOd, but it seems blessed Gaia needs 3 times as much.

[Freedom4US]

It’s much more likely they have already sold it, or the rights for future drilling. The polar bears are just a smokescreen. I know it sounds tin-foil, but it makes sense.

As to the latter you better check again. The government seizes property all the time. A classic example among many are the coal properties in the state of Utah back in the 90s.

[Ann Archy]

OMG!! We are lead by IDIOTS!!

DRILL HERE....DRILL NOW....better be the Rallying cry for the Republicans!!

[Bean Counter]

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

According to this official Alaska state govt site, the feds own 60 percent of the total land, or about 222 million acres. The 200,000 square miles mentioned in the article amounts to 128 million acres, more than half of the federal total (assuming only federal lands were set aside, which I'm not willing to bet).

[white17x]

The federal govt. owns more of Alaska than the state does. Our % of private ownership here is miniscule. We are still trying to get all the lands promised to us at statehood in 1959.

[Myrddin]

Idaho has a similar problem.

[Repeal The 17th]

And just where is the constitutional authority for this?

[Libertarianize the GOP]

Back in the thirties FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court with Justices who would do his bidding, the intimidated court decided that maintaining the pretense of Judicial Review trumped the wording of the Constitution, the result was a complete reversal of a limited government with only enumerated powers. Ask any Democrat and they will explain how it is a living document, that the government can do anything a Democrat administration might dream up, at least if they can pretend it promotes the General Welfare, the general welfare of the Democrat party that is.

[TYVets]

Who stands to gain the most from making this "habitat" a no drill zone?

OPEC

[novemberslady]

land grabbing bastards...

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[tacticalogic]

Who stands to gain the most from making this "habitat" a no drill zone?

OPEC

Only muslims can have oil wells. We're the petro-dhimmis.

[rdl6989]

Do these idiots want $10 a gallon gas?

[steelyourfaith]

I'm quite certain that they do want to raise gas prices. Polar bear population is 4 to 5 times higher than it was in the 1950s, BTW.

[penelopesire]

Good point!

[proud_yank]

We knew this was coming as soon as the bears were listed as threatened.

Its easy for them to use polar bears in their campaigns and mislead people- they're a beautiful & majestic animal (wrongly portrayed as 'cute/cuddly') that hardly anyone will ever see in the wild. Play some emotional music in a commercial showing them with a sad look on their face, and ask for large donations to stop their demise. Lots of people who know little to nothing about them, or their habitat, open their wallets.

From what I've read, their populations have been on the rise. Want to see their numbers shoot up, open a limited drawn hunt on them. Hunters want large boars, boars eat cubs and will kill sows to get cubs (this is not caused by global warming, and happened back in the days of global cooling too), hunters take large boars, more sows/cubs live, population grows. Brown bears on Kodiak are a prime example of this.

As for the fed's land grab, 60 or 70% of AK is already owned by the feds. A lot of history there, but in the end we can thank Jimmuh Catah for that one.