Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is just another BushCo Crony

Well, looks like the fallout is about to start.

Back in January and February while the polar bear was waiting for protection under the endangered species act, the government was illegally stalling and selling thousands of oil and gas leases in the very same habitat areas. But this is not news.

Fortunately, places like the Center for Biological Diversity, NRDC, and others banded together to sue the government to make it's formal declaration, which was legally enforced by a judge's decision sometime in May. Yes, MAY.

Then, another insult. The interior's decision was a status downgrade from the promised 'endangered' to 'threatened' in order not to have to deal legally with the issue of climate change as the cause for their continued slide into extinction. Nice.

Now we are onto the next phase, when the companies who bought the illegally sold drilling rights want to be getting about their business. Can't say I blame them. But in what progressive country, what reality do companies expect to be able to drill in environments where protected species live? In Bush Country, that's where.

There has been so much subterfuge, outright illegal acts, continuing flaunting of the law in order to get around controls put in place so that individual usage does not trump the greater good of the planet that it leaves one dizzy and breathless.

I've decided to post the story below from The Center for Biological Diversity, along with the link to the MSNBC story.

Like I said, this isn't really news, it's just another wake up call to those of us who think that the people we elect to uphold the laws of the land should do that, rather than treat them as if they were an inconvenience to industry development. There is usually an area of compromise between industry and conservation, and what usually results are environmental protection laws. To continually allow our leaders to disregard and abuse those laws will be to our great detriment in the decades that follow.

I, for one, am hoping for a bit more enlightened self-interest from our next elected governmental body. Someone who considers us as stewards of the Earth, not owners and exploiters. Our next president will appoint someone new to the post of Secretary of the Interior, and it can't come soon enough for me.

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Feds Give Oil Execs Blank Check, Center to Stop Payment

The Chukchi Sea -- home to most of the world's Pacific walruses and one of America's two polar bear populations -- is the least industrially developed portion of the U.S. Arctic. In February, however, while the Department of the Interior illegally delayed protecting the polar bear as a threatened species, it offered oil and gas leases on 30 million acres of the Chukchi Sea.
When Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne finally got around to protecting the polar bear last month, he sought to shield oil and gas drilling by illegally exempting polar bears from the Endangered Species Act's prohibition against killing and harassing imperiled species. He justified the decision by saying the bears would instead be protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. On Tuesday, however, he exempted polar bears (and walruses) in the Chukchi Sea from protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act as well.

In addition to directly affecting polar bears, offshore oil operations will emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide, methane, and black carbon. And once the oil and gas are burned, they'll emit billions of tons of additional greenhouse gases.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment have formally notified the Department of the Interior that they'll sue to overturn the decisions and protect all polar bears in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
Read more about it at MSNBC.