Figuratively speaking, of course.
But the fact is that for the past several months the U.S. Interior Department’s Inspector General has been investigating wildlife biologist Charles Monnett for reasons they have yet to reveal. Then last month, he was abruptly suspended and ordered not to speak to the press or his colleagues.
Could he be connected to some terrorist cell, bent on destruction?
It doesn’t seem likely. For one thing the government is always happy to parade suspected terrorists out to the news media.
So what could be so serious that he’s been suspended and no one can talk about why. Lucky for us, his co-workers and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) aren’t afraid to talk. They say Monnett’s being harassed by the government because he’s making life difficult for the oil companies that want to drill in the Arctic.
Remember all those pictures of distressed polar bears swimming around looking for ice floes to rest on? It generated enough public pressure to get the polar bear declared a threatened species. It Monnett who first noticed several drowned polar bears while he was working on a research project about wales. He and a colleague wrote a short paper speculating that the melting polar ice cap and resulting open water was making it more difficult for polar bears.
PEER says that the oil industry has been lobbying hard to get the permitting process expedited.
Alaska Sen. Mark Begich is clearly on their Christmas gift list. In April, flanked by several oil company executives, he announced that he was filing a bill to create a permitting “coordinator” to do away with pesky oversight by agencies like the Interior Department that gave the oil industry “heartburn.”
Monnett’s story has been reported in papers like the UK’s Guardian, but is almost completely absent from the American media.
I've provided links if you want to read more.
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