(CNSNews.com) - Environmentalists welcomed a bill introduced Thursday by the chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that would delay the sale of land in Alaska for oil exploration. They believe the Department of Interior has delayed classifying the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act until after they can sell this land, which is also polar bear habitat.

"The only thing keeping pace with the melting of the sea ice is the breakneck speed with which the Department of the Interior is rushing to approve oil and gas activities in polar bear habitat," said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate, Air and Energy Program, a liberal organization.

"This oil and gas sale must not proceed, because the impacts to polar bears have not been considered," Siegel said.

Biological Diversity is one of several environmental groups that sued the Department of Interior for failing to meet their deadline for classifying the polar bear on Jan. 9, 2008. If the polar bear is not listed as an endangered species, Siegel said they will take the government to court.

Committee Chairman Ed Markey's bill would require that the Interior Department delay the oil drilling rights sale in the Chukchi Sea (for Sale 193) - currently scheduled for Feb. 6 - until it had made a decision on the polar bear.

According to Randall Luthi, director of the Minerals Management Service, "the Chukchi Sea Planning Area could hold 15 billion barrels of oil and 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas ... thus providing potentially significant future production of oil and gas from Northern Alaska."

"Sale 193 was originally scheduled for June 2007, but we delayed the sale until February 2008 to provide sufficient time to complete the environmental analyses," he said in his testimony for the select committee on Thursday.

Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, added that "a review of various factors led to a determination that these activities do not threaten polar bears throughout all or a significant portion of its range."

"It's just absurd," countered Siegel. "There is a 40 percent chance of an oil spill. That's incredible. That's like saying you have a 40 percent chance of being hit by a bus, you would consider that a really big problem, and you would do something about it.

"By holding up the polar bear finding just a little bit, they're going ahead with this sale before looking at the impacts on polar bears," she told Cybercast News Service. Siegel noted that Luthi said they would not look at the impacts before approving development if the sale occurs before a decision on whether to list the polar bear.

But while Siegel said she was "excited to hear about the new legislation," Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Cybercast News Service, "I think that Rep. Markey's bill is a short-sighted attempt to block domestic energy production by using unsubstantiated claims about the polar bear.

"Rep. Markey and too many other members of Congress are willing to use any tools available to stop oil production in this country," he said. "Then they complain about high gasoline prices and importing oil from countries they don't like."

Siegel, however, said it would be many years before oil could be on the market from the Chukchi Sea, so it has little impact on gas prices.

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