APNewsBreak: Companies get OK to annoy polar bears

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years.

Environmentalists said the new regulations give oil companies a blank check to harass the polar bear.

About 2,000 of the 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic live in and around the Chukchi Sea, where the government in February auctioned off oil leases to ConocoPhillips Co., Shell Oil Co. and five other companies for $2.6 billion. Over objections from environmentalists and members of Congress, the sale occurred before the bear was classified as threatened in May.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080614/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/polar_bears_oil

[DRoseDARs]

1. Only if the polar bears are given a fair chance to maim and potentially kill those who try to do so.

eom

[bulloney]

2. AP Newsbreak: Republicans get OK to annoy Americans.

[Devil_Fish]

3. The oil Co.s will just kill all the polar bears...

that way their already "small numbers" will get smaller.

god I am sick of them destroying our planet. I just finished watching "Who Killed the Electric Car." I bet you can guess how it ends.

We could be running Meany of our cars on Electricity right now. we had the tech a long time ago. It's stupid that they won't even let us plug in our Toyota Prieses. How F-ing stupid to have this tech but only use gas to charge the batt. If we could plug in our Prieses at night, we could get over 100 miles to the gal, and possibly never need to fill up at all. We wouldn't need to drill for Oil. We could leave that poison in the ground. We need a class action against the oil industry, and the car makers too.

check out http://ev1.org and then watch the movie. it will make your blood boil.

[NewEnglandGirl]

4. I Can't Wait

until they're out of office. GD them, they're not happy unless they are killing something every day. :mad:

[bluesmail]

5. By listing the polar bear as an endangered species

Doesn't that make it illegal (annoying) to mess with ANWR? I thought that that was a circumvent reason besides the obvious, for listing the polar bears as Endangered.

[provis99]

6. well, Bushco already annoys all human americans

looks like they're moving through the list to annoy all the animals in America next. After that, will Bush start to annoy plants and rocks, too?

[1Hippiechick]

7. Go to Defenders of Wildlife Campaign to Save Polar Bears website where you can send a letter to your

congressman - letter already in place - just personalize.

http://actionfund.defenders.org/site/PageServer?pagename=c4polarbear_homepage

[OhioChick]

8. Big Oil wins again. n/t