Arctic offshore oil drilling disaster coming...

Trump to press for Arctic offshore oil opening

By BEN LEFEBVRE

President Donald Trump will seek to open the Arctic waters for offshore oil and gas drilling, reversing President Barack Obama's policy that prevented exploration in a region that environmental groups warn is too sensitive to risk an ecological catastrophe.

The move is Trump’s latest attempt to jettison Obama-era environmental policies and help open the spigot for U.S. oil and natural gas production, but is certain to draw legal challenges from environmental groups.

Trump will sign an executive order Friday that also orders his Department of Interior to review the five-year offshore leasing plan issued by the Obama administration, Interior Secretary Zinke told reporters. The study could take two years to conduct, and will look at the federal waters in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean as well as Alaska's Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea and Cook Inlet areas.

But it won't examine the eastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico, keeping the oil industry out of the waters that Floridians have long protected as vital the the state's huge tourist industry.

Trump’s executive order will also direct the Commerce Department to review all marine sanctuaries created or expanded in the past 10 years and report back to the White House in three months.

The first 100 days of the Trump administration have seen a flurry of activity on energy and environmental issues, with Trump issuing orders to roll back climate change regulations on power plants, fuel efficiency rules for vehicles and pollution limits for coal mining. The move to begin looking at expanding access to offshore areas helps fulfill his campaign promises to boost domestic energy production.

Democrats and environmental groups vowed to fight the order even before its details were released.

Allowing oil companies to expand offshore operations "would put coastal economies and ways of life at risk of a devastating oil spill, while worsening the consequences of climate change,” League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski said in a statement.

Trump’s order did not specifically place Pacific waters outside review, but Zinke noted that Californians had curbed offshore drilling along its coast, although leases in federal water there could also be used to establish wind farms.

“We’re going to give local communities a voice,” Zinke said. “I’m optimistic about the wind opportunities.”

California Gov. Jerry Brown, had pressed Obama to permanently ban drilling off the state's coast, and any rush to start drilling in the Pacific would also meet resistance from restaurant owners, fisheries, resort operators and a host of other businesses that depend on the coast staying clear of oil rigs.

“I wouldn’t say it’s sacred ground. It’s more like exhaustive ground,” a source at one major oil company said about the potential for drilling in California.

Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and 25 other senators sent a letter to Zinke demanding that no changes be made to the Obama administration's five-year lease plan unveiled in November and which runs until 2022, the lawmakers said Thursday. The senators also submitted a bill calling for the plan to be kept intact.

“Our immediate goal is for them to leave the five-year plan alone," Menendez told reporters. "At the end of five years, a future administration could think about what it wants to put in its five-year plan.”

Even with crude at a modest $50 a barrel, the oil industry is intensely interested in getting access to the waters to the west and north of Alaska. The U.S. government estimates the Arctic circle could yield 90 billion barrels of oil, about a third of that in the area around Alaska alone.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron and other oil companies have lobbied to expand Alaskan drilling even as they focus for now on tapping into the vast resources the fracking technology has opened up in Texas and North Dakota in recent years.

Even companies that a year ago relinquished their old Arctic leases in favor of focusing on shale plays have recently become more excited about Alaskan prospects.

Eventually the world’s energy appetite will force oil companies to explore new areas, and energy experts see some of the best prospects in areas former President Barack Obama placed off limits with his executive power in December.

“It’s important for us to see new areas available for leasing,” said Andy Radford, the American Petroleum Institute's senior policy adviser for offshore energy. “It’s a long-term view of things. We’re going to need oil and gas well into the future. The supply we have now is depleting. You’re constantly trying to restock the cupboard.”

Environmentalists said they will fight any attempt to bring more rigs into the Arctic. The region’s extreme weather make drilling in the area prone to accidents, which could prove impossible to clean up, they argue.

Roiling seas and rough winds helped push oil giant Shell from the Chukchi Sea off the northeast shore of Alaska. Shell spent $9 billion to explore there in 2012, but a series of setbacks, including a drilling rig that came untethered and ran aground, and disappointing drilling results, led the company to abandon its leases.

Pumping oil hasn’t been much easier in the relatively calm shallower waters. Oil company Hilcorp in February reported a leak in a natural gas pipeline it operates in the Cook Inlet but wasn’t able to stop it until mid-April because cold and ice prevented divers from approaching the pipeline, according to the company.

The federal regulator, the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, forced Hilcorp, the biggest operator in the Cook Inlet, to shut down its oil pipeline earlier this month after it started leaking.

“An oil company can’t fix a leak in Cook Inlet,” said Center for Biological Diversity attorney Kristen Monsell. “How are they going be able to deal with an oil spill or gas leak in the much more difficult Arctic?”