The buzz right now on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal is Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain’s VP pick. Until the news really develops, here’s at least an interesting item from Alaska news:

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) — TransCanada Corp., the nation’s largest pipeline company, won approval from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to build a $27 billion pipeline to carry natural gas from the Arctic to U.S. markets.

Palin on Aug. 27 signed a bill authorizing the state to award Calgary-based TransCanada a license to build the 1,715- mile (2,744-kilometer) link from Prudhoe Bay to the Alberta Hub in Canada, according to a statement. The license will be granted in 90 days.

Compare and contrast to the environmentalist obstruction around here to…bike paths! From The Examiner, an editorial about the Inter-County Connector:

Maryland officials included the 11-mile, off-road bicycle and pedestrian trail several years ago in a deal with litigation-happy opponents of the highway, who had blocked it for more than 40 years by appealing to the courts and regulatory bureaucracies at all levels of government. After fending off countless lawsuits and completing the most exhaustive environmental impact study ever done in Maryland, officials were finally able to begin construction earlier this year of the road, the Inter-County Connector that is scheduled to open in 2010. It is a desperately needed transportation improvement in the Washington region.

Now, the environmental extremists have turned against the bike trail, too, claiming it will increase runoff on local parkland. The runoff generated under the most extreme circumstances by a ten-foot-wide ribbon of asphalt crossing 87 acres of green space is negligible, but that’s not really the point. In any rational cost/benefit analysis, the minuscule amount of runoff will be more than offset by vehicle emissions that won’t be released into the atmosphere as less congested traffic flows more freely instead of idling at red lights and in bumper-to-bumper delays. But for bike trail opponents, taking the issue to court may slow or even halt construction of the road, again.

Two different world views.

From the Governor’s Office, Alaska:

August 4, 2008, Fairbanks, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin announced today the State of Alaska has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to overturn U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s decision to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

This action follows written notice given more than 60 days ago to Secretary Dirk Kempthorne of the Department of the Interior and Director Dale Hall of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking that the regulation listing the polar bear as threatened be withdrawn.

“We believe that the Service’s decision to list the polar bear was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available,” Governor Palin said.

And over at PlanetGore, Greg Pollowitz notes this fascinating story of a huge, newfound population of gorillas in equatorial Africa:

(CNN) — An estimated 125,000 Western lowland gorillas are living in a swamp in equatorial Africa, researchers reported Tuesday, double the number of the endangered primates thought to survive worldwide.

“It’s pretty astonishing,” Hugo Rainey, one of the researchers who conducted the survey for the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society, told CNN Tuesday.

You know, the same Wildlife Conservation Society that “contributed key data” to the official count of “endangered” polar bears in the Arctic. Now, granted, it’s easier to hide away from the environmentalist paparazzi in a swamp than on the icecaps, but still…

CNBC’s Larry Kudlow interviewed Gov. Palin last week on energy, presidential and congressional politics and her future. A good read.