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he Arctic holds about a tenth of the world’s known oil and natural gas reserves – and it’s not clear what nation owns which offshore reserves because ownership is based on where the edge of the continental shelf is, and we don’t have a clear picture of undersea topography there.

As a result, the US, Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, China and even South Korea, Singapore and Japanare all making forays into the region to establish drilling rights – rights that are becoming more valuable as ice-free navigation becomes possible in some parts of the Arctic.  So it would make good sense, wouldn’t it, for the US to establish operations wherever it can as quickly as it can, give a reasonable regulatory regimen?

And we would be doing just that, were it not for the Center for Biological Depravity Diversity.  The Washington Times reports today that the Center’s endless and aggressive litigation has brought much of the exploration by US companies to a halt:

Richard Ranger, senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying group, said direct legal challenges are also slowing exploration and production off Alaska’s coast.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit conservation group, is the principal party behind Arctic litigation, Mr. Ranger said. The group has filed lawsuits with the federal Minerals Management Service to halt the issuing of air quality permits to Royal Dutch Shell, asserting, according to the center’s Web site, that the oil giant has not adequately assessed how exploratory drilling would affect wildlife and native populations.

Shell announced earlier this week that it was withdrawing its 2007-2009 drilling plan in the Beaufort Sea and would submit a new plan for 2010. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco blocked the company from oil drilling in July 2007.

The new lawsuits come on the heels of the Center’s central effort in getting the polar bear listed, a ridiculous, political contortion of the Endangered Species Act that should have been stopped in its tracks by the Bush Administration, but wasn’t, in one of Bush’s most signficiant domestic failures.  Building on that success, the Center is actively pursuing listings of numerous ice-dependent seals,  – the ribbon, bearded, spotted, and ringed seals – making similar arguments that worked well with its polar bear litigation strategy:

In addition to loss of its sea-ice habitat from global warming, the ribbon seal faces threats from oil and gas development in its habitat, and the growth of shipping in the increasingly ice-free Arctic. Last month, important summer feeding areas for the ribbon seal in the Chukchi Sea were leased for oil development, while seismic surveys are planned for the area this summer.

And what is the answer to these seals’ plight?  Hint: It’s not to just let them survive, as they have survived previous warming spells that melted the Arctic ice. No, we have to attack industry, the economy and the American way of life to save the seals:

“With rapid action to reduce carbon dioxide, methane, and black carbon emissions, combined with a moratorium on new oil-and-gas development and shipping routes in the Arctic, we can still save the ribbon seal, the polar bear, and the entire Arctic ecosystem,” said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director for the Center. “But the window of opportunity to act is closing rapidly. Endangered Species Act protection for the ribbon seal and other Arctic species will provide important tools to protect these species and their fragile habitat in the Arctic.”

Going after multiple seal listings at the same time is the same strategy that has worked so well for the Center in Central California, where its Delta smelt listing, which has slashed water deliveries and spiked unemployment in some areas to 40 percent, has been followed by similarly disruptive listings of the long-finned smelt and Delta-dependent salmon species.

The new litigation’s focus on air quality shows how opportunistically the Center bends environmental laws and regulations to their favor. Air quality is an area of easy pickings since the baseline arctic air is unusually clean. Regulations written for the Lower 50 are easy to exploit there, and exploit they have.

The Center takes no prisoners. It doesn’t believe in compromise. It certainly does not believe in an economically robust, expansive America. Its founder has made it clear he sees his purpose as the depopulaiton of the West. The Center’s mission obviously has grown, and its actions in the Arctic not only could lead to greater dependence on foreign oil, but also, tragically, could lead to foreign ownership of drilling sites that are rightfully ours.

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hen your local neighborhood environmentalists wax poetic about alternative energy, remember that they really hate viable alternative energy solutions because they represent progress and man exerting his will over nature.

You scoff.  I prove it.

Last Friday, the Center for Biological Depravity Diversity and Sierra Club cleared a major hurdle in our campaign to defeat the Sunrise Powerlink, a controversial transmission line proposed for Southern California, when the state’s Public Utilities Commission proposed two decisions opposing the project’s current plan. The administrative law judge’s proposed decision would totally deny San Diego Gas & Electric’s request to build the 150-mile-long transmission line, planned to stretch from the Imperial Valley desert to San Diego and cut across Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, as well as many other protected parks and preserves. This decision, if adopted, will mean a complete victory for the Center, the Sierra Club, and Southern California, halting a project that would ravage species habitat, contribute to global warming, and pose a significant wildfire threat.

What the CBD coyly and dishonestly doesn’t say in its email (which you can sign up for here) is that the Sunrise Powerlink is more than a “controversial transmission line” – it’s a transmission line dedicated wholly to carrying “Save the Earth” solar and geothermal power from plants in the desert to power users in San Diego.

It would not “ravage species habitat” – power lines go through species habitat throughout the region and, in fact, the habitat that’s protected around these lines creates wildlife movement corridors that enhance species populations.

It would not “contribute to global warming” – it would reduce reliance on California’s oil-burning electric power plants.

It would not “pose a significant wildlife threat” – few birds a year might die from electric shocks. That’s insignificant (unless you’re a wildlife absolutist).

The enviros forced measures through our legislature requiring electric utilities to rely more and more on alternative energy sources, but when the utilities actually try to do this, they face this kind of litigation and obfuscation from the greenies.

I see them as hypocrites, but it’s important to remember that there’s one word that describes them much better:  Fundamentalists.  And their aggressive adherance to their belief system is more akin to the Islamist jihadists than it is to the Christian fundamentalists they so often ridicule.

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nsanity knows no bounds, and eco-insanity is particularly immune from boundaries.  As the nation’s fiscal crisis deteriorates, whacked-out judges continue to make decisions that would bring incremental improvements to the environment, if any, at a cost of billions.

In case you haven’t read your most recent copy of the Capital Ag Press, here’s the latest:

A court ruling that forces New York City to have a pollution discharge permit for drinking water the city pipes in from elsewhere may threaten irrigation systems in the West.

Let’s pause here for a moment for the uninitiated. A discharge permit is what you need to get if you’re discharging pollutants to the environment. Back in the 70s when the Clean Water Act went into effect, this was a good thing. Industries and municipalities were dumping all sorts of nastiness into the nation’s waters – our waters – and it caused nasty things to happen, like the Cuyahoga River catching fire.

But that was long ago, and the big nasty pollutants and polluters are all under control. What’s not under control are environmentalists intent on using these laws to bring down our nation, so they came up with the idea of calling water a pollutant. If New York City buys water from upstate New York and puts it into its pipe, these guys want New York to have to consider that water a pollutant and get a discharge permit.

The ruling specifically relates to water transfers, something that happens literally thousands of times a year in Idaho and the West, says Scott Campbell, Boise attorney and chairman of the Water Quality Task Force for the National Water Resources Association.

Irrigation canals and ditches are specifically exempt from regulation under the Clean Water Act, but that may change if the court ruling stands, Campbell said. …

“That ruling is literally costing New York City millions of dollars,” Campbell said.

And why should they have to pay? Is there evidence that this transferred water has ever made anyone sick? No, of course not; it’s not a pollutant. But by mincing the letter of the law and finding a judge who apparently recently escaped the insane asylum, the enviros prevailed.

“There are a lot of other states with massive water transfer systems, such as Colorado, which pipes water from the West Slope of the Rockies to its eastern plains. That water moves through pipes and lakes. If the state is required to have a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, we’re talking billions and billions of dollars. In some instances, there’s no way the water could be treated.”

California could find itself in a similar situation, given a massive water transfer system there that conveys water from the northern to the southern part of the state, he said.

Read more from the Capital Ag Press by clicking here.

C-SM readers know that Kieran Suckling, founder of the Center for Biological Depravity Diversity, promised long ago to change the way we in the West live by attacking our water supplies.  His goal is simple:  He wants to depopulate the West.  The CBD is sure to jump on this lawsuit and try to apply it here, where water districts are already looking at having to increase rates dramatically to keep up with the “regulatory drought” brought by environmental lawsuits.

Again, forcing discharge permits onto water transfers will do nothing directly to improve the environment.  But by making life more miserable for the people, it will accomplish the goals of the radical environmental movement.

hat-tip: Aquafornia

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he Center for Biological Depravity Diversity doesn’t pretend to be your run of the mill, down in the mouth Greenie group, rummaging for financial scraps to keep itself going:

As our range grew, and first tens, then hundreds of species gained protection as a result of our groundbreaking petitions, lawsuits, policy advocacy, and outreach to media, we went from living and working on a shoestring to having offices around the country — from relying on donated time from pro bono attorneys at large firms to building a full-time staff of 15 prominent environmental lawyers and eight scientists who work exclusively on our campaigns to save species and the places they need to survive. (source)

Fifteen full-time attorneys can wreak a lot of havoc, and the Center’s have, attacking water systems, forest management plans and real estate developments – and that’s just the small picture. Big picture: Going after the American economy with its recent polar bear listing that threatens to drive the nation over the regulatory cliff.

That’s why news like this is so refreshing:

A federal judge’s 2006 order to stop a 133- condominium development in Fawnskin on the north shore of Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains was thrown out in its entirety Wednesday by an appellate court.

A three-judge U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals [the NINTH Circuit!] panel said the case lacked federal jurisdiction because a series of Clean Water Act violation notices filed against Marina Point Development Co. were insufficient to bring the matter to court.

“It should have been dismissed at the outset,” the judges ruled. They lifted a permanent injunction imposed by U.S. District Judge Manuel Real. …

Attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity, which brought the 2004 lawsuit along with the activist group Friends of Fawnskin, said they were weighing their appeal options. …

The appellate justices additionally denied an almost $1.7 million attorney-fee award for the Center for Biological Diversity. (emphasis added)

Imagine that! The Center was set to rake in $1.7 million bucks – enough to hire more attorneys, open more offices, take on more actions, but no more. And it was the notoriously green Ninth Circuit that took away their booty. What a glorious victory for sanity and common sense!

Meanwhile, poor Marina Point Development could have had its condos built and sold by now, were it not for the Center, and the Earth would be no worse for it because every step of the construction process would have been regulated and monitored up the wazoo.

But my how the market has changed since 2004 when the Center sued. Now the company says it wants to finally move forward with its project, but is worried about its viability in the burst bubble of the U.S. housing market.

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No sooner is the ink dry on yesterday’s disastrous threatened listing of the polar bear than the Greenies are back with another proposed listing for a species supposedly impacted by theoretical global warming. From E&E News:

The Bush administration will consider Endangered Species Act protections for a California seabird whose island habitat, environmentalists say, is threatened by climate change.

The Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that protection may be warranted for the ashy storm-petrel, so it will perform a formal status review.

The small, smoke-gray seabird nests and forages on a handful of offshore islands near San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Its population has already experienced sharp declines. The largest colony in central California decreased by 42 percent from 1972 to 1992, according to a study by scientists at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory in California.

By the way, don’t assume that just because scientists did these population studies that they are right. From the snail darter to the spotted owl, the population studies used in endangered species listings are frequently very flawed.

Now here comes the global warming connection:

The review comes in response to a petition and legal challenge from the Center for Biological Depravity Diversity. The storm-petrel petition is one of many requests the group has made for protection of species affected by climate change. Its most high-profile complaint concerned the polar bear, which the administration agreed to list as “threatened” yesterday after several lawsuits. The center also has successfully pressed for the listing of two coral species affected by climate change.

The center’s petition predicts sea-level rise could drown important habitat for the bird in sea caves and offshore rocks. Warmer, less productive waters and ocean acidification are expected to reduce the numbers of the storm-petrel’s prey — small larval fish and plankton.

Also under attack by the Center is shipping and other off-shore activities, because they have “lights that can confuse its nocturnal flights.” I’ll bet there’s no proof of that either, but it makes a good argument for a group that is committed to the depopulation of the American West. Click the link, scroll down to the section on water supply, and you’ll see the group’s founder, Kieran Suckling, pictured, talking about his vision of a depopulated West.

The storm-petrel listing petition is more evidence of the Center’s strategy of litigation-storms and listing-storms. They are not content with the ludicrous polar bear listing alone, so they immediately back up their victory yesterday with another listing petition. It’s sort of like jurisdiction shopping; they file multiple listing petitions and multiple lawsuits, so that if one falls flat, they’ve got a back-up.

They did the same thing in the California delta. Once they found a fawningly sympathetic judge who decreed water deliveries to SoCal would have to be cut by 30 percent (YIKES!) to protect the Delta Smelt, the Center promptly filed a listing petition for the long-finned smelt, another Delta fish whose listing would result in further pump cut-backs.

Combine the Center’s global warming and water supply litigation and listings and you’ve got a plan for getting people to move elsewhere, except that people will have nowhere with a good economy to move to, since any growth at all will be stopped because it could lead to a chunk of ice melting of Kamchatka somewhere.

We have seen the enemy; it is within, and its weapon is the Endangered Species Act.

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