Offshore Drilling in Alaska: Obama Must Slow the Rush

By Margaret Williams, Yale Environment 360. Posted November 19, 2008.

Those of us who work regularly on these issues are alarmed for two principal reasons. First, state and federal environmental oversight of the oil industry in the Arctic has been abhorrent. And second, engineers and other experts widely agree that the technology to contain oil spills in sea ice environments simply doesn't exist.

Experts point to a yawning gap in "oil spill response" capacities between Arctic and temperate zones. If oil is spilled in the Arctic, we should expect it to stay there. We know all too well the impact of spilled oil on bird life and marine mammals, including polar bears: they die. MMS itself has said that the likelihood of a major oil spill in the Chukchi Sea is somewhere between 30 and 50 percent. Yet, most experts contend that it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to use booms and other conventional technology to soak up heavy crude oil in waters covered in icebergs and sea ice.

The Exxon Valdez disaster, the worst oil spill in US history, did catalyze improvements in the industry. But industry problems have persisted in the Arctic, including slipshod maintenance of key parts of the Trans Alaska Pipeline and North Slope oil facilities.

On Prudhoe Bay, a lack of maintenance has caused major oil spills, leading to previous court injunctions against offshore exploration. British Petroleum went years without maintaining one of its North Slope pipelines, resulting in a spill of 200,000 gallons of oil in 2006 and a 3-day shutdown of BP's operations.

At sea, Shell Oil has aggressively pursued plans to develop offshore oil deposits. But Shell's exploration activity in the Beaufort Sea was halted when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that seismic testing would harm noise-sensitive bowhead whales and the indigenous communities that harvest them. The village of Point Hope, Alaska, joined by numerous native and environmental groups, is now challenging offshore development on the 2.9 million acres in the Chukchi Sea, contending that MMS violated federal environmental laws when it conducted the lease sales.

A top priority of the Obama administration must be to put an end to a culture at MMS in which science has routinely been quashed and corruption has been rampant. MMS has repeatedly demonstrated its allegiance to the oil industry, and there is a revolving door between the MMS and the industry as they trade senior staff back and forth. A senior MMS official retired from his agency post, only to turn up on the Shell payroll. The Interior Department's Alaska representative made a similar move to Shell Oil. But this cozy friendship is not unique to Alaska. This fall, the Interior Department's Inspector General released details of an investigation demonstrating a history of oil companies bribing MMS employees with gifts and sexual favors.

Understandably, consumers throughout the United States are worried about the deepening economic crisis and the high cost of living. But the implication that drilling in the U.S.'s marine environments will do much to help the average American is wrong. In fact, experts of all political persuasions acknowledge that even if offshore drilling were to begin today, a decade would pass before the oil could flow to the gas pumps. And even then, we'd only be paying a few cents less for each gallon of gas.

President-elect Obama must quash the myth of drilling our way to energy independence and develop a comprehensive energy policy that recognizes the benefits of conservation and efficiency and the necessity of moving to a low-carbon economy. In addition to slowing the rush to drill in Alaska waters until comprehensive scientific studies are conducted, the new administration should consider buying back some or all of the $2.6 billion in leases sold last February on the Chukchi Sea. A precedent exists for such action: Following the Exxon Valdez spill, the federal government paid $90 million to re-purchase leases in Bristol Bay.

Let's hope that as our new president and Congress develop an energy and climate policy, they will reject the vision of Arctic seas bristling with oil derricks and instead pursue a forward-looking plan that will both wean the United States off its addiction to oil and secure a future for the unique ecosystems and people of the Arctic.

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Margaret Williams is the Managing Director of World Wildlife Fund’s Kamchatka-Bering Sea Ecoregion Program, which is working on an international conservation strategy for this region.

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