Two conservation groups are challenging the Bush administration's recent decision to let oil companies unintentionally harass or harm polar bears and walruses in the growing pursuit of fossil fuels off the northwestern Alaska coast.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Anchorage, Pacific Environment and the Center for Biological Diversity alleged that federal officials violated laws designed to protect the animals and their sensitive habitat in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea.
"These regulations set the parameters for how oil exploration will be done in the next five years," said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The Chukchi Sea is critical habitat for those animals. For them to survive in the face of global warming, we simply cannot allow oil development there."
Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to grant legal protection to seven oil companies in the Chukchi over the next five years should they accidentally harm "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses during the course of drilling and other exploratory activities. The agency is named as a defendant in the suit, along with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
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