Earlier this year, despite Sarah Palin’s best efforts, the Bush Administration chose to cave into the environmental left and designate the polar bear as ‘threatened’ pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. Bush made the decision despite the fact that an independent committee of scientists told the Canadian government that the polar bears are not, in fact, threatened or endangered. Bush tried to mollify pro-growth critics by claiming he could list the polar bears as threatened without then naming a critical habit as required by law. It is because of wishful …
The economy is by far the No. 1 issue on most Americans’ minds. Gas prices are a close second. The two issues are intimately related. But the spike in oil prices this year is just the tip of the iceberg. Due to similar developments in supply and demand, electricity prices are set to skyrocket next year. While American oil consumption has grown only 15% since 1973, electricity use has shot up 115%. Right now the U.S. has 760 gigawatts of power to meet consumption. We will need 135 gigawatts of …
Commenting on the Interior Department’s decision to list the polar bear as threatened pursuant to the Endangered Species Act George Will writes: No one can anticipate or control the implications that judges might discover in the polar bear designation. Give litigious environmentalists a compliant judge, and the Endangered Species Act might become what New Dealers wanted the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 to be — authority to regulate almost everything. What Friedrich Hayek called the “fatal conceit” — the idea that government can know the future’s possibilities and can …
Here’s a preview of what’s happening this week in Washington. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5soRqhJLnQ[/youtube] The Lieberman-Warner climate change bill may cost the sponsoring senator’s states dearly — Connecticut’s economy will lose $6.8 billion and Virginia’s economy will lose $12.2 billion in 2030. Presidential candidates’ home-state economies will also suffer — John McCain’s Arizona will suffer $7.7 billion and Obama’s Illinois will lose $19.6 billion in 2030. According to Heritage’s analysis, the cumulative gross domestic product losses are at least $1.7 trillion and could reach $4.8 trillion by 2030 using inflation adjusted dollars. Is …
The Department of the Interior is expected to announce soon that polar bears have been designated a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The justification for such a move will not be that polar bears are actually declining. Rather, the justification will be based on speculation that they may decline in the future as a result of global warming. Global warming, so the argument goes, is causing Arctic sea ice to melt, and, unless that process is arrested, polar bears will be unable to survive because they need Arctic …
Environmentalists are in their normal state of righteous frenzy over the Department of Interior’s continued deliberations on whether or not to list the polar bear as “endangered” pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. Responding to a California judge’s decision ordering Interior to make their decision by May 15, Natural Resources Defense Council’s Andrew Wetzler said, “The science is absolutely unambiguous that the polar bear deserves protection.” The Center for Biological Diversity’s Kassie Siegel added: “The science is perfectly clear. There’s no dispute. The polar bear is an endangered species.” This …
Today the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold an oversight hearing on the Interior Department’s delay in deciding whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Since the polar bear is an immensely popular megafauna, environmentalists hope that an endangered species listing for the bear could serve as the final nail in the coffin for any energy exploration and development in the Arctic. While the loss of energy development in these lands can only drive energy prices up further, higher gas prices are just the …
