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By Matt Vespa
The San Jose Mercury News
On June 29 the Bush administration quietly approved a keystone of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy policy: furthering our addiction to oil through the 5-Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. The program governs the sale of all offshore oil and gas leases in federal waters over the next five years and anticipates the drilling of more than 10 billion barrels of oil and more than 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in some of our most pristine and sensitive marine habitats.
Five of the lease sales would be in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off the coast of Alaska - industrializing and fouling prime polar bear habitat. Polar bears, already drowning and starving as global warming transforms the Arctic, can ill afford the additional stress of oil and gas development in their home. Another lease sale proposed in Alaska's Bristol Bay would compromise critical habitat for the North Pacific right whale, the world's most endangered whale, while two other lease sales are proposed for Cook Inlet, home to imperiled beluga whales and sea otters.
The U.S. Minerals Management Service, which is in charge of environmental review for the project, refused to disclose the greenhouse gas emissions from using the fossil fuels that would be produced. The agency said these emissions were beyond the scope of its review because they would have no bearing on the decision to lease or not lease our offshore waters to oil companies. Despite the agency's refusal.
to disclose the program's emissions, it's fairly straightforward to calculate that the 10 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas would lead to nearly 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide - approximately equal to the annual emissions of the entire United States. The agency's refusal to disclose this to the public is an outrage.
Leading scientists tell us with a high degree of certainty that allowing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to rise above 450 parts per million will lead to climate disaster, including 20 feet of sea-level rise in as little as 100 years and extinction of up to a third of the world's species. Just 10 more years of "business-as-usual" global emissions will make it difficult, if not impossible, to keep atmospheric levels, which are already at 380 parts per million and rising at over 2 parts per million per year, below 450 ppm. In order to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, then, the United States should begin emissions reductions immediately, ultimately slashing emissions to 80 percent or more below 1990 levels by the middle of this century.
On July 2, the day the program went into effect, the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit over the failure to adequately consider greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to imperiled wildlife. As Congress weighs options for reducing our nation's greenhouse gas emissions, we cannot allow the administration's latest oil-industry handout to pass unchallenged. The greatest irony is that we could save far more oil and gas than would be produced from our offshore waters through measures like improved fuel economy for passenger vehicles, improved energy efficiency for buildings, and additional renewable energy generation. The administration has ruthlessly opposed common-sense measures like these, as well as any rational approach to global warming. If we want to leave our children a safe and healthy world where polar bears still roam, we must insist that Congress enact such measures, as well as a mandatory cap and rapid reduction of overall greenhouse gas emissions immediately.
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