Markey: Polar Bear Investigation Needed, Overdue -Chairman “Wary” of Endangered Species Process at Interior

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Contact: Select Committee, 202-225-4081

Markey: Polar Bear Investigation Needed, Overdue

Chairman “Wary” of Endangered Species Process at Interior

WASHINGTON (March 7, 2008) – Today the Inspector General’s office in the Interior Department announced it was launching an internal investigation into the actions surrounding the listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. The decision on the bear, which is threatened by the melting of polar ice from global warming, has been delayed for several months, but an oil lease sale in a major polar bear habitat was allowed to proceed. Both decisions were decided by agencies within the Interior Department.

Below find the statement of Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Chairman Markey held a hearing in January on the polar bear and oil lease sale decisions, and introduced legislation that would place the polar bear decision ahead of the oil lease sale in the Chuckchi Sea in Alaska.

“Given this administration’s closeness with the oil industry, its history of politicizing scientific decisions, and the recent actions and years of delay from this Interior Department on the polar bear listing, I am wary of the integrity this process.

“This internal investigation is needed and long overdue, but what’s essential, now that the science on the polar bear has been sitting in Secretary Kempthorne’s office for months, is an immediate decision to protect this iconic animal under the Endangered Species Act.”

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