Bush Earns Some Praise for Ocean Protection

This blog pounds on George W. Bush a lot. So, to be fair (and balanced!), here's one person who thinks he's done some good stuff for the oceans. Namely, he established three national marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean.

This opinion comes from Andrew Sharpless, the CEO for Oceana.

...it would be churlish not to give credit where it is due, and President Bush certainly deserves credit for acting when there was no political benefit to be gained; even his own vice president opposed creating the monument. When you add the roughly 335,000 square-mile-area in the Pacific that is now protected from virtually all fishing to the nearly 700,000 square miles he closed to bottom trawling, the most destructive kind of fishing gear, this president has given future generations an ocean gift nearly the size of Texas and Alaska combined.

Bush Proposes Penguin Protection, Hell Freezes Over

Not perfect, but still, wow.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to list six species of penguin as threatened species and one _ the African penguin _ as an endangered species.

But it has denied protection under the 1973 Endangered Species Act for three others _ including the emperor and northern rockhopper penguins, the stars of such popular movies as "March of the Penguins" and "Happy Feet."

....Environmentalists hailed the Bush administration's proposal to fully list six penguin species, but criticized its decision not to protect three others, including the emperor penguin, the largest penguin in the world and one that depends on sea ice for breeding and feeding.

Bush People Say Oil and Polar Bears DO Mix

Yeah, and cigarettes are actually GOOD for you....

US officials defended plans for oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea off northwestern Alaska, telling lawmakers that it would not harm polar bears, already threatened by global warming.

Randall Luthi, director of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which sells oil drilling rights, told Congress Thursday that the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act provides adequate safeguards to polar bears from oil exploration accidents such as oil spills.

In addition, he said, contracts with oil companies include measures to minimize the impact such activities can have on the polar bear population.....

A US government expert on polar bears said that the melting of sea ice due to global warming would cause a two-thirds drop in the world polar bear population by 2050, and named the Chukchi Sea as one of the most threatened polar bear habitats.

Photo by reso438k.