The Interior Department has been working furiously to issue drilling permits so that oil companies can begin drilling and constructing the infrastructure that enables production in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Trump administration is accomplishing this by cutting corners and ignoring the science to do so. What’s the rush you might ask? Because if they can destroy a good part of the refuge before the US elections result in a takeover by a Democratic Senate and President, they would reverse the decision that the radical right and the fossil fuel industry were able to achieve through a Republican Senate with Trump signing dangerous decision into law.
In the waning days of 2018, the U.S. Interior Department took a major step toward allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by releasing a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) that downplays and underestimates the damage that would result from drilling one of the most wild places left on earth.* The review, required by law and conducted by a private contractor hired by the Interior Department, assesses the potential environmental impacts of auctioning off drilling rights on more than 1 million acres of the coastal plain in the Arctic Refuge.
A Center for American Progress review of the Interior Department’s environmental analysis finds that it dramatically underestimates and discounts the permanent, irreversible damage that would result from drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Even through the assessment’s rosy lens, it’s clear that drilling would have terrible consequences for the refuge, its wildlife, and the indigenous populations who rely on it for subsistence.
The Trump administration is hurrying this inadequate assessment in an attempt to sell off drilling rights before Congress or a future administration can intervene to block destruction of the Arctic Refuge. Significantly, no new scientific data were collected for the DEIS—though an independent 2018 U.S. Geological Survey report found that there are many data gaps and a significant amount of outdated information on coastal plain resources and the potential impacts of oil and gas development in the refuge.
Still not convinced? The Interior Department has prioritized the destruction of the critical habitat for wildlife by continuing to work on Arctic drilling despite the government shutdown that is currently causing untold misery for many Americans.
The Interior Department has responded to questions from a Democratic Congressman about its continued work to advance oil development in Alaska during the partial government shutdown.
Despite the shutdown, Interior has held public meetings in Alaska communities on potentially expanding oil development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. And last week, Alaska’s Energy Desk reported that an Interior employee was continuing to email community leaders in Alaska to arrange meetings about oil lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, two weeks into the shutdown.
On Monday, Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona wrote a letter to Interior demanding details on how the agency is paying for its continued work, saying it raises legal questions. Grijalva, now chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, is fiercely opposed to oil development in the Refuge.
“The work for gas and oil continues, despite the shutdown, despite the fact that people are not being paid, despite that our parks are suffering from looting, vandalism and unsanitary conditions,” Grijalva said in an interview.
As a result, the oil industry fesses up to the Washington Post that they have zero restraints and expect no delays.
The Trump administration's decision means the oil and gas business, one of the most heavily regulated industries in the United States, says it has yet to feel any real consequence from the shutdown.
“To this point, we have not seen any major effects of the shutdown on our industry,” Mike Sommers, president and chief executive of the oil and gas business’s chief lobbying organization, the American Petroleum Institute, told reporters Tuesday.
The department’s Bureau of Land Management, for example, has accepted and published 22 new drilling permit applications in Alaska, North Dakota, New Mexico and Oklahoma between the start of the shutdown and Wednesday afternoon. Officials said they did not anticipate any delays in the processing of either permit applications or requests for inspections of drilling operations on federal land.
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