Alaska & Arctic Oil Drilling: moves of protest within government

While many conservation groups bemoaned the recent U.S. administration's announcement of oil drilling, all is not lost. The proposed strategy, which included areas in Alaska and the Arctic, has led many to either believe that President Obama is back-tracking on campaign promises or that (as I believe) he is compromising in an attempt to gain bipartisan support for future climate and energy legislation.

However, while conservation groups are initiating email and letter write-in campaigns to voice their protest, there are significant wheels in government that are turning that could also make a difference. Here is an excerpt from an article from Los Angeles Times writer Kim Murphy about various actions which we should be watching:

What's next for oil in the Alaskan Arctic?

"Just because the Obama administration has finally settled on its strategy for offshore oil and gas development on the Outer Continental Shelf, don't think the issue of what happens in the Alaskan Arctic is settled -- far from it.

Already, lots of new developments are underway. New briefs have been filed in the attempt to stop Shell Offshore Inc.'s plan to drill exploration wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas; a new Government Accountability Office report criticizes the Minerals Management Agency in Alaska for how it conducts its environmental reviews; and now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is turning attention back to the classic battleground over Arctic oil, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The agency announced it is beginning its first update in more than two decades of the conservation plan for the 19.2-million-acre refuge that lies west of the Prudhoe Bay oilfields on Alaska's North Slope -- home to grizzly bears, moose, wolverines, Dall sheep, birds, a massive herd of caribou and, if you're feeling optimistic, as much as 10.4 billion barrels of oil.

About 8 million acres of the refuge already are protected as wilderness. The new study could recommend additional areas for wilderness protection (read: no oil drilling, ever) including, conceivably, the so-called 1002 area of the coastal plain designated by Congress to study for possible oil development.

'There are no avenues of discussion closed off to the public,' Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Bruce Woods said."

Read the entire article to learn who, within government, is supporting the protection of the Alaskan/Arctic wilderness and what is going on behind the headlines.

U.S. Salmon Policy for Columbia River: top scientist says it comes up short

It's one year into the new U.S. administration and scorecards are flying about, tallying up the highs and lows of the Obama administration as the President prepares for a State of the Union address this week.

Some people are noting that the "change" that was a centerpiece of the Obama campaign has not materialized. Others have said that much has been accomplished in the form of small steps that don't necessarily get a lot of attention. For conservationists, there were many hopeful signs at the outset, but there has been many areas of concern as the administration makes decisions that many see as counter-productive and reminiscent of the former administration's anti-environment/pro-business approach.

Case in point: Dr. Carl Safina, head of the Blue Ocean Institute, had an op-ed piece printed in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday that calls attention to the administration's adoption of a policy regarding Pacific Northwest wild salmon in the Columbia/Snake River system. The policy is the same as one proposed by the prior administration and looks to hold the line on the current levels of wild salmon - levels that already border on extinction for many salmon species that travel these inland waterways.

According to Dr. Safina, the annual migration of wild salmon through these rivers provides critical food source and nutrients for bears, wolves, orcas, and even the plants and trees in the area. Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the head of NOAA and administration point person on this issue states that the policy is intended to "prevent further declines." However, Dr. Safina comments on that approach:

"Keeping salmon in a coma and on life support does not heal them, nor help the other species, including people, that depend on them. The likeliest outcome of a salmon strategy based on just avoiding extinction will be extinction -- and not only of salmon."

The current administration is learning the harsh realities of turning campaign rhetoric into actionable leadership. When to play politics and run down the middle or when to take a stand based on sound scientific research seems to be a difficult balancing act for most governments. As supporters of ocean conservation, we need to make sure our voices are heard by our elected officials and that environmental decisions are made based on scientific research and in the best long-term interests of the animals and the environment. Because, regardless of what administration is in power, when they are gone, they are gone.

Read Dr. Safina's entire op-ed article.

Of Regulations & Reefs: U.S. and Australia consider climate change effects

In the United States, the Obama administration is considering ordering all federal agencies to evaluate any major actions to be taken by considering either their impact upon or how they would be affected by climate change.  As reported by Jim Tankersley in the Los Angeles Times, the order would expand the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act and represents a step forward in recognizing the impact of global warming in the U.S. and is considered a victory for environmentalists.

"The act already requires federal agencies to consider environmental impacts such as land use, species health and air and water quality when approving projects.  By formalizing a requirement to consider effects on climate -- a step some agencies already take -- the administration would introduce a broad new spectrum of issues to be considered."


But it's not a done deal yet.  According to Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the decision is not yet final.  This will provide time for climate change opponents and business interests to get their lobbying efforts into high gear.  Admittedly, the current environmental impact report process is a drawn out one that has delayed more than a few projects in the past.  Having to make the additional consideration as to whether a shoreline road project might impacted by rising sea levels or whether rising temperatures might mean that different species of trees would replace trees cut down in a clear-cutting project - as was cited in the Times article - will provide environmentalists with additional reasons to question certain federal agency plans.  So, expect the battle lines to be drawn.

But if the current administration is going to hold true to its concerns about addressing climate change, then this step is probably a good one.  

The article quoted David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club as saying, "People will think longer and harder and smarter about what they build when they understand that the environment around them is changing." 

Read the LA Times article. 

On the other side of the globe, in Australia, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) has dismissed claims from some local scientists that the corals of the Great Barrier Reef are currently not at risk from climate change.  GBRMPA chairman, Dr. Russell Reichelt said there is strong scientific consensus, research and fieldwork to confirm that the increase in ocean temperatures brought on by global warming poses the greatest risk to the future health of Australia's coral reefs.  This refutes the contrary position taken by Dr. Peter Ridd, who believes the threat is greatly exaggerated.

According to an article in the online Cairns.com.au, Dr. Reichfelt says that coral bleaching is the most compelling evidence of the effects of temperature change and that the incidence of coral bleaching and its severity have been increasing over the past two decades.

"You’ve got animals and plants there that are adapted to withstand up to the normal [temperature] limits," Dr. Reichfelt said. "If you’ll take it above what they’re adapted to, they’ll die." 

Read Cairns.com.au article.

   

Conservation & Politics: climate bill and species protection lagging

Getting caught up on my backlog of environmental and conservation email, I ran across some interesting and disturbing items from the Center of Biological Diversity, one of the most proactive organizations in wielding the power of the law to effect change. According to CBD:

Senate Climate Bill Spells Disaster

The Senate took a disastrous step backward on climate legislation last week, passing a loophole-ridden global warming bill with unacceptably low pollution-reduction goals that would also work against our most effective existing law to fight global warming. First, the bill has no target for atmospheric CO2 levels; in fact, it would let CO2 increase to about 600 parts per million -- while science shows we must reduce levels to 350 ppm to avoid climate catastrophe. Second, the bill eliminates the Clean Air Act's requirement for federal scientists to determine the safe level of greenhouse gas concentrations. Third, the bill's carbon-offset provisions are so many and poor that they undermine its own pathetic emissions-reduction goals.

The second point CBD lists is one that concerns me because it is the scientists - not the political or commercial interests - who should be the objective source for determining greenhouse gas limits. Industry may not like what they have to say and it may involve considerable financial cost - but nature is not interested in what is financially expedient and further delay will only guarantee greater financial and human costs later.

Read more from CBD/New York Times.

Obama Trailing Bush on Species Protection

Late last week, the Obama administration released its first review of animals and plants deemed deserving of federal protection that are still languishing without it -- and there are a whopping 249. On average, these candidates for Endangered Species Act protection have been waiting for safeguards for 20 years; at least 24 candidate species have gone extinct due to delays in protection. The Center for Biological Diversity and allies have a lawsuit pending in D.C. to stop the illegal and fatal stall in protecting all 249 candidate species, from the Oregon spotted frog to the Florida semaphore cactus.

After 10 months in office, the Obama administration has granted federal protection to only two species, including the Hawaiian plant Phyllostegia hispida, which had been on the candidate list for more than a decade. The Bush administration -- with the worst species-protection record in history -- put an average of about eight species per year on the endangered list. Obama administration, you'd better get cracking.

Many of us welcomed this new administration with hopeful expectations but were fully aware of the enormity of the problems it faced. Expectations were high and maybe, to an extant, unreasonable. But with such a backlog of candidate species and only two granted protection so far, CBD is right on target. Even with health care and foreign policy issues capturing so much attention, those within the administration in charge of federal protection of species to need to get cracking.

Read CBD press release.

Weekend Update: wolves, corals, and more. . .

Here is a Weekend Update on several direct or related issues that have appeared in previous posts - some good, some not so good. Click on the subject heading to see the original posting.

Wolves - Endangered Status:
This past week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put the Great Lakes wolf back on the endangered species list. This action bodes well for the pending court action to place the nearby Northern Rocky Mountain wolves residing in Idaho and Montana, which are currently subject to state-sanctioned hunting, back on the list also.

Copper Mine Expansion Stopped:
An Appeals Court voided a land trade between the Bureau of Land Management and the Asarco Corporation which would have traded 7,300 acres of private land for 11,000 acres of public land destined to allow the expansion of the Asarco copper mine. The court ruled that the trade was "arbitrary and capricious" and did not consider the environmental impact. Verizon Wireless gave a tepid response to 81k email protests regarding their support of a pro-mountaintop-removal mining rally held this past Labor Day, claiming the sponsorship was not an expression of mountaintop removal coal mining.

Desert Tortoise Relocation Thwarted:
Due in large part to public protest, the Bureau of Land Management halted the controversial relocation of over 1,000 desert tortoises, originally as part of an expansion of the Fort Irwin Army base. Relocation efforts in the past have proven fatal for many of the tortoises, but Fort Irwin is hoping to get approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move 90 tortoises, thereby defying the Bureau's action.

CO2 at 350 ppm Emphasized by UN Scientists:
Member scientists of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change again emphasized the need to establish a level of 350 parts per million for carbon dioxide emissions as the base level if we are to make any real progress. They warned that any legislation, like the current U.S. global warming legislation being considered, that sets CO2 limits above 350 ppm will lead to catastrophic effects on coral reefs and other ecosystems. The U.S. bill, passed by the House, sets the limit at 450 to 550 ppm. Over 350 organizations have urged a level of 350 ppm to be the goal in the U.S. Senate's version of the bill.

Endangered Species Waiting List:
And, as a final aside, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, there is a waiting list for species in need of Endangered Species List protection. Held back because of bureaucratic inefficiency or "higher priority" federal programs, the list includes 100 species that have been waiting for more than a decade and 73 have been waiting for more than a quarter-century. And apparently this bureaucratic quagmire has contributed to the extinction of 83 plants and animals between 1974 and 1994. The new Obama administration has said it will address a current backlog of over 250 species, but the proof will lie in the results.

Thanks to the proactive Center for Biological Diversity for the photos and info.