Washington (Platts)--17Jan2008

The chairman of the US House Select Committee on Energy Independence and
Global Warming Thursday said he will introduce legislation that would force
the Bush administration to protect the polar bear before it allows widespread
oil and natural gas drilling in Alaska.

Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he plans to
introduce a bill that would require decisions "in the proper order to protect
the polar bear."

The US Fish and Wildlife Service last month said it would delay for one
month a decision about whether to list the polar bear as a federally protected
Endangered Species, saying it needed more time to study comments submitted
last year. The announcement of a delay came after the US Minerals Management
Service said it would open Alaska's Chuckchi Sea, which is habitat for the
polar bear, to oil and natural gas leasing, leading some environmental groups
and lawmakers to draw a connection between the two announcements.

At a hearing on the issue Thursday, Markey's committee received testimony
from the heads of the FWS, MMS as well as the US Geological Survey scientist
who wrote a September study that predicted a two-thirds reduction in sea ice
by 2050, a development that would lead to the disappearance of the bear from
Alaska.

"The timing of the drilling decisions leaves the door open for the
administration to give big oil the rights to this polar bear habitat the
moment before the protections for the polar bear under the Endangered Species
Act go into effect," Markey said. "Rushing to allow drilling in polar bear
habitat before the bear would be the epitome of this administration's
backwards energy policy -- a policy of drill first and ask questions later."

Markey said his bill would require the Department of Interior to delay
the oil drilling rights sale in the Chuckchi Sea until it had made a decision
on the polar bear, and had performed it's statutory responsibility of
establishing a "critical habitat" for the polar bear.

--Derek Sands, derek_sands@platts.com