The Obama administration is abandoning plans to open the Arctic Ocean to more drilling in the face of dwindling industry interest and massive environmental opposition.
The Interior Department said Friday it is canceling a pair of scheduled Arctic Ocean lease sales. One was planned for next year to auction rights to drill for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northern coast of Alaska, and the other was for 2017 in the neighboring Beaufort Sea.
At the same time, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell rejected the requests of Shell and Statoil for more time to consider drilling under their current leases. Those leases start expiring in 2017.
The moves come just weeks after Shell announced its pioneering $7 billion Arctic Ocean oil exploration program was a failure. The company said it didn’t find enough oil to justify the cost and was abandoning the offshore Arctic drilling effort “for the foreseeable future.”
“In light of Shell’s announcement, the amount of acreage already under lease and current market conditions, it does not make sense to prepare for lease sales in the Arctic in the next year and a half,” said Jewell.
The Arctic Ocean is believed to hold huge oil and gas deposits. But low energy prices and high costs have dampened the enthusiasm of oil companies for exploring the Arctic Ocean and the lease sales were expected to draw little interest – especially after Shell’s costly failure.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, nevertheless criticized the president for blocking “any hope for future energy development in the Arctic.” He blamed environmental regulations for Shell’s failure.
“Obama has once again played directly into Russia’s hands as he destroys our nation’s energy potential,” said Bishop, who is chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources.
Senate Energy Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, called it a “stunning, short-sighted move.”
“Today’s decision is the latest in a destructive pattern of hostility toward energy production in our state that began the first day this administration took office,” Murkowski said.
There are still potential Arctic Ocean drilling lease sales in 2020 and 2022, under Interior Department plans. Much will depend on the winner of next year’s presidential election. Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton has expressed opposition to drilling in the Arctic Ocean, while Republican candidates have either supported the drilling or not weighed in.
Environmental groups hailed Obama’s decision to cancel the lease sales scheduled over the next two years.
“For years, people around the world have been demanding President Obama protect the Alaskan Arctic from catastrophic oil drilling, and today he’s taken a major step,” said Greenpeace spokesman Travis Nichols.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy