Bush is really scraping the barrel now. Having failed to convince the congress last month to hand over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to his buddies in the oil business, he has had to satisfy the countries growing thirst by sacrificing the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area instead. The move sweeps aside decades of environmental protection and is just one more sign of the desperation of a dying empire in the face of a global peak of oil production.
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USA - Scraping the barrel.
Last month, the US congress resisted pressure to accept a proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. This week, Alaska's Teshekpuk Lake Special Area 110 miles further west has been sacrificed instead.
The 4.6 million acre area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is immediately west of the massive Prudhoe Bay oil field in northern Alaska bordering the Beaufort Sea.
Despite opposition from Alaska Natives, scientists, sportsmen (read hunt scum) and conservation groups, last Wednesday the Bush administration handed over 100 percent of Teshekpuk Lake Special Area to oil and gas leasing extraction. The decision eliminates longstanding wildlife and environmental protections first put in place by Reagan administration.
Conservationists were dismayed by the decision. “The administration today opened 100 percent of the northeast NPRA to drilling," said Eleanor Huffines of the Wilderness Society. "Apparently 87 percent wasn’t enough for the oil companies.". Conservationists point out that the area provides vital habitat for migratory waterfowl, caribou and other wildlife, and is an important subsistence hunting and fishing area.
"When the administration eliminates conservation measures that even James Watt believed were necessary, you know that its land management policies are unbalanced in the extreme," said Jim DiPeso, policy director of REP.
The Bush administration’s efforts to open the Teshekpuk Lake area to drilling have consistently drawn fire from a variety of groups and government agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Waterfowl Association, Ducks Unlimited, the Pacific Flyway Council, Wildlife Management Institute, the Wildlife Society, the Nature Conservancy and numerous other conservation groups.
In addition, 200 ornithologists and other wildlife professionals, and a bipartisan group of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus called for Teshekpuk Lake area protections to remain in place.
The groups say the Teshekpuk Lake area was targeted for drilling by the industry-dominated Energy Task Force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001.
“This plan is utterly unbalanced: even the Reagan administration protected the waterfowl habitat around Teshekpuk Lake because of its world-class ecological and cultural value,” said Stan Senner, executive director, Audubon Alaska.
Ironcially, the estimated oil and gas quantities in the area amount to just three months of domestic oil consumption and two months of domestic gas use! The production will have negligible effects on US imports or global oil prices - it just goes to show how desperate the oil hungry economy of the USA has become.
USA - Scraping the barrel.
Last month, the US congress resisted pressure to accept a proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. This week, Alaska's Teshekpuk Lake Special Area 110 miles further west has been sacrificed instead.
The 4.6 million acre area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is immediately west of the massive Prudhoe Bay oil field in northern Alaska bordering the Beaufort Sea.
Despite opposition from Alaska Natives, scientists, sportsmen (read hunt scum) and conservation groups, last Wednesday the Bush administration handed over 100 percent of Teshekpuk Lake Special Area to oil and gas leasing extraction. The decision eliminates longstanding wildlife and environmental protections first put in place by Reagan administration.
Conservationists were dismayed by the decision. “The administration today opened 100 percent of the northeast NPRA to drilling," said Eleanor Huffines of the Wilderness Society. "Apparently 87 percent wasn’t enough for the oil companies.". Conservationists point out that the area provides vital habitat for migratory waterfowl, caribou and other wildlife, and is an important subsistence hunting and fishing area.
"When the administration eliminates conservation measures that even James Watt believed were necessary, you know that its land management policies are unbalanced in the extreme," said Jim DiPeso, policy director of REP.
The Bush administration’s efforts to open the Teshekpuk Lake area to drilling have consistently drawn fire from a variety of groups and government agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Waterfowl Association, Ducks Unlimited, the Pacific Flyway Council, Wildlife Management Institute, the Wildlife Society, the Nature Conservancy and numerous other conservation groups.
In addition, 200 ornithologists and other wildlife professionals, and a bipartisan group of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus called for Teshekpuk Lake area protections to remain in place.
The groups say the Teshekpuk Lake area was targeted for drilling by the industry-dominated Energy Task Force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001.
“This plan is utterly unbalanced: even the Reagan administration protected the waterfowl habitat around Teshekpuk Lake because of its world-class ecological and cultural value,” said Stan Senner, executive director, Audubon Alaska.
Ironcially, the estimated oil and gas quantities in the area amount to just three months of domestic oil consumption and two months of domestic gas use! The production will have negligible effects on US imports or global oil prices - it just goes to show how desperate the oil hungry economy of the USA has become.
