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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (2082)	1/15/2002 11:45:10 PM
From: rich4eagle	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15516

Yeah, this bothers me, now the wetlands are going to swallowed up by developers with deep pockets who make big donations to Bush

To: Mephisto who wrote (2082)	1/19/2002 6:31:43 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Norton Insists Arctic Drilling Safe The New York Times January 18, 2002 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 11:10 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- Interior Secretary Gale Norton believes there's room for both polar bears and oil drillers in a remote Alaska refuge. Her staff in the Interior Department concluded that America's treaty obligations to protect the world's largest land predators would not be violated by oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, officials said Thursday. ``The Interior Department came to the conclusion that we are committed to protecting polar bears and producing energy in the Arctic Refuge,'' department spokesman Mark Pfeifle said in an interview. Both career and political staff now agree the bears can be adequately protected, thanks to improvements in oil drilling technology, he said. Department officials rejected warnings contained in two draft reports, in 1995 and 1997, by Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service that said drilling for oil might not be compatible with a 1973 treaty that requires signing countries to protect polar bears and their habitat. It was signed by the United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark and the former Soviet Union. Despite the earlier reports, Fish and Wildlife Service scientists more recently concluded that the risks to polar bears are minimal if oil development in the refuge is properly regulated. President Bush on Thursday promoted the administration's plan to drill for oil in the refuge by meeting with Teamsters leaders to highlight the potential for jobs. Unions are divided over oil drilling in the refuge, since many major labor groups oppose it. Environmentalists have long argued that development of the oil in the refuge would jeopardize the coastal plain's wildlife including polar bears, grizzly bears, musk oxen, 130 species of migrating birds and thousands of porcupine caribou that give birth to their young there in summer. Pfeifle noted that the Fish and Wildlife Service during the Clinton administration had approved several drilling projects in the Beaufort Sea, which is near the refuge. Alaska Democratic Party Chairman Scott Sterling, in Washington, D.C., for the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting, said he supports oil drilling in ANWAR as long as wildlife is protected. Sterling, an attorney from Wasilla, Alaska, about 45 minutes from Anchorage, said Alaskans want to strike a balance between preserving the refuge and creating jobs. ``We recognize it's a national treasure, but it's also a resource,'' he said. nytimes.com

To: Mephisto who wrote (2082)	1/23/2002 1:12:56 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Silent on Wetlands The Washington Post Monday, January 21, 2002; Page A16 AS SECRETARY OF the interior, Gale Norton presides over agencies with wide-ranging and sometimes conflicting missions, from saving endangered species to issuing permits for mining and drilling on federal land. She says she's committed to protecting the environment and can balance that with an expanded effort to develop oil, gas and coal resources. But she sent a different message with the way her department handled its response to an important set of proposed Army Corps of Engineers rules involving wetlands. The Corps is the chief regulator of the vital acreage that provides food and breeding grounds for wildlife, protects water quality by filtering impurities and helps to control flooding. Draining or filling wetland acres requires a permit from the engineers, who are supposed to make sure the activity doesn't harm the environment. The Fish and Wildlife Service objected sharply to some changes the Corps proposed to some permit requirements. Its biologists warned that the changes could result in "tremendous destruction of aquatic and terrestrial habitats." Interior's Office of Surface Mining took a different view of proposed changes involving mining operations' effect on wetlands. The two agencies worked out a compromise just before the Corps' deadline, but top Interior aides didn't think it was ready to submit. The rules became final without the department weighing in formally on the concerns raised by its agencies. The Corps argued from the beginning that its proposals still would protect the environment. Even without comments from Fish and Wildlife, the proposals were modified in the end, though not to the extent environmentalists wanted. But the whole scenario raises questions about how strongly the Interior Department will speak for environmental concerns, particularly when, as is almost always the case, they compete with other interests. A spokesman for Secretary Norton blamed the failure in this instance on Congress: Because key appointees haven't been confirmed, he said, "there were not enough hands on deck to move the paperwork through the system." That's not a good enough excuse. Congress should not delay qualified appointees, but in the meantime it's up to the folks who are there to find a way to get critical work done. And it's up to Secretary Norton now to show that, when it comes to publicly advocating strong environmental protections, Interior isn't going silent. © 2002 The Washington Post Company