March 24, 2004 – Fifteen years after the Exxon Valdez spilled its deadly petroleum cargo into the waters of Prince William Sound, drilling for oil in Alaska's wildest places remains the central preoccupation of the oil industry and its allies in Washington, DC, and the State of Alaska.
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While much attention has been focused on the Bush administration's relentless efforts to open the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, the same administration has been working systematically to open vast areas west of the refuge, as well as the millions of acres of federal waters offshore from Alaska's north coastline. As a result, virtually every square yard of America's arctic coast outside the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is now available for oil and gas exploration or development.
A new map released today graphically underscores the grim reality: On the North Slope of Alaska, only the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a small area around Teshekpuk Lake remain off limits to the oil industry today.
An Extreme Agenda for America's Arctic
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:
- The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the only place on the North Slope of Alaska that remains legally closed to exploration and development. Bipartisan majorities in the U.S. Senate have rejected drilling legislation twice since 2002, and poll after poll has found majorities of Americans opposed to opening the refuge to drilling.
National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska:
- In 1999, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt opened 4.6 million acres in the northeast section of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the North Slope. More than 85 percent of this area was open to leasing under this decision, but certain key wildlife habitat was protected in "special areas" off limits to drilling. On May 1, 2004, the Bush Administration is expected to reopen the protected "special areas" in the Northeast NPR-A this spring. The areas to be reopened include sensitive wildlife areas around Teshekpuk Lake that were first protected by President Reagan's Interior Secretary James Watt.
- On January 22, 2004, the Bush administration announced that it would make the entire 8.8-million-acre northwest planning area of the Reserve available for oil leasing. Conservation groups have filed suit, asserting that the administration failed to even consider alternatives that would have put any part of the region off limits.
- The Bureau of Land Management has begun the process of preparing an Environmental Impact Statement to allow full field development of three successful exploration wells drilled by Phillips Petroleum in the area. The industry's proposed action violates the 1998 Record of Decision by including permanent gravel roads, drilling pads and development in environmental buffer zones.
Offshore Waters:
- In September 2003, the Minerals Management Service issued a Final EIS for the Beaufort Sea Outer Continental Shelf, off the coast of Alaska's North Slope. This action opened 9.4 million acres to oil and gas leasing -- virtually the entire Arctic Ocean off Alaska's North Slope. A further lease sale is slated for March 2005.
Meaningless "Deferrals"
- A few areas in the Northwest Planning Area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska are available now for exploration (which can include seismic mapping and other intrusive activities), but lease sales are "deferred" until 2014. However, industry experts agree that it would take at least that long for pipelines and other infrastructure to be built to these areas, so the deferrals offer no meaningful protection at all.
- The state of Alaska is pursuing an aggressive lease sale program under what it calls "Areawide" leasing on state lands and waters on Alaska's North Slope. Each year the state offers for lease all of the unleased state-owned acreage between the Canning and the Colville Rivers, and state-owned waters offshore between Barrow and the Canning River. On state lands alone, the oil industry has access to an additional 14.7 million acres.
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