As global warming continues to melt fragile Arctic habitat, polar bears and other imperiled species are fighting for their lives. Yet Big Oil is escalating its campaign to open America's prime Arctic wildlands -- including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Western Arctic Reserve and the Polar Bear Seas -- to massive oil development. Vast swaths of land and sea along Alaska's north and west coasts, the fragile home of polar bears, whales, caribou and millions of birds, will be ravaged by the oil and gas industry if pro-polluter policies put in place by the Bush Administration are not reversed.

NRDC and BioGems Defenders helped stave off repeated attempts to drill in and around the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and also helped win a temporary reprieve for the Teshekpuk Lake region -- birthing grounds of the legendary Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd as well as rare yellow-billed loons, tundra swans and eiders.

In a major victory for polar bears, bowhead whales and other Arctic wildlife, a federal judge recently sided with NRDC and other environmental groups in a ruling that blocks oil and gas companies from moving ahead with drilling operations in the Chukchi Sea – one of the two Polar Bear Seas – until more studies are done on the impacts and risks of drilling.

Meanwhile, the other Polar Bear Sea – the Beaufort – is still being targeted by Big Oil. BP, the company responsible for the worst oil spill in U.S. history, is planning to drill in the Beaufort using an untested technology.

And the Shell oil company wants to proceed with exploratory drilling off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Obama Administration has placed a 6-month hold on those plans but that delay is fast running out and drilling could begin next summer. We are calling on President Obama to impose a 7-year moratorium on all new offshore drilling in the Arctic in order to avoid a repeat of the Gulf catastrophe in the heart of polar bear habitat.