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Obama offshore oil plan fails to protect polar bears from drilling
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today announced plans to revise the national offshore oil-drilling plan that, while protecting areas off Florida and the Atlantic seaboard, would leave drilling in polar bear critical habitat off Alaska on the table. The new proposed plan, covering the years 2012-2017, is virtually the same as the Bush administration's 2007-2012 plan, which was struck down as unlawful by the courts. Secretary Salazar also announced he was moving forward with plans to allow Shell to drill off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge next summer.
"While protecting the fragile coasts of Florida and the Atlantic is important, there is no excuse for continuing to consider drilling in polar bear critical habitat off the coast of Alaska," said Brendan Cummings, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. "If the risk of an oil spill is too great for Florida, it is also certainly too great for Alaska."
Oil development in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, home to all of America's polar bears, is strongly opposed by conservation groups because no technologies exist to clean up oil spills in icy waters. Oil development in the Beaufort Sea would likely also be visible from the shores of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Today's plan would allow drilling on existing leases in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, while the remainder of these areas would be subject to additional leasing following further environmental studies.
Shell's plans to drill in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska in 2010 were put on hold following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Shell has since proposed to drill in the Beaufort Sea off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in summer 2011. While Shell had requested approval of the drilling with no further environmental review, Interior today announced it was moving forward with a new environmental assessment of Shell's drilling plans. Although this is more red tape than Shell requested, an environmental assessment–rather than a more thorough environmental impact statement–is only appropriate when there is no chance of significant environmental impacts.