Tricky maybe an understatement as we look at Obama's decision to open up untouched Artic waters for exploration given his environmental accomplishments. We're not sure how he justifies this endorsement unless it is purely to raise money for other Democrats.
He is a president who has pushed renewables and believes we need to cut fossil fuel use and rein in carbon emissions. He has funded efficiency programs and put money into states to meet clean air standards. He claims we are entering a new frontier and economy.
So, if we are pulling back on fossil fuel use, why drill into Artic waters? If natural gas is a bridge fuel, why extract more? Is it purely to export and gain balance on the trade with other countries? Is that really worth the environmental risks?
One bad accident in the Chukchi Sea could destroy his legacy of green improvements. This policy perplexes us. Sure, it will grow jobs there. We understand most people love natural gas right now for a diverse supply of fuel (buildings, cars, buses...) Yet, it does not fit in with a policy of migrating from a fossil-fuel economy to a clean energy one. This agreement is confusing and very frustrating to us.
Alaska’s Tricky Intersection of Obama’s Energy and Climate Legacies
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s move to open up vast, untouched Arctic waters to oil and gas drilling as he pursues an ambitious plan to fight climate change illustrates the inherent tensions in his environmental and energy agenda.
As the first president to seriously tackle climate change, Mr. Obama has proposed aggressive new rules to cut planet-warming carbon emissions from the nation’s power plants and is pushing for a major global warming accord. He has also overseen an extraordinary boom in domestic energy production that has made the United States the world’s leading oil producer.
The oil industry and environmentalists say that the Chukchi Sea, where Shell intends to explore for oil, is one of the most perilous places in the world to drill. Environmentalists and oil industry officials say that a drilling accident among the icy waters and 50-foot waves of the Chukchi could lead to a disaster far worse than the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 and sent millions of barrels of oil spewing through the Gulf of Mexico.
“He has done a lot on global warming,” said James Thurber, the director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University and a former adviser to the Energy Department. “But if there is an accident in the Arctic, especially if it’s sooner rather than later, that becomes the history of his environmental work. If that happens, this president will not be known as an environmental president.”
In the administration’s view, the decision to drill in the waters off the Alaska coast is a calculated risk that addresses environmental concerns, continues domestic oil production and manages legal obligations. Mr. Obama, administration officials say, chose to move forward with the Arctic drilling only after pairing the approval with tough new safety regulations.
Before giving conditional permission to Shell, the Interior Department put forward three major new drilling regulations, designed to prevent disasters like the 2010 explosion, and it has granted Shell the right to drill only if it clears additional regulatory hurdles, including acquiring permits from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
“This is an administration that truly believes in its technocratic capacity,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former Interior Department official who was a senior policy adviser on the Presidential Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. “It believes proper regulatory oversight can overcome technical challenges. After the Deepwater Horizon, they decided to set up the most stringent oil and gas regulations in the world — and that they were going to expand leasing.”
Throughout the six years of Mr. Obama’s presidency, the nation’s oil and gas development has surged, creating jobs and lowering electricity prices. While Mr. Obama has pushed policies designed to lower the nation’s demand for the fossil fuels that cause climate change, he has also gained politically from the economic benefit of increased supply.
“The president has been pushing hard throughout his time in office to do what he can on climate change,” said Dan Utech, a White House adviser on energy and climate change. “But at the same time, he sees the benefits of domestic fossil fuel production in terms of jobs and revenue. We’ve seen this huge boom in production, and that’s had significant benefits for our economy.”
Aides also point out that while Mr. Obama has opened some new federal waters to drilling, including off the southeastern Atlantic coast, his hand was in part forced on Arctic drilling by his predecessor. The George W. Bush administration was the first to sell federal oil drilling leases in the Chukchi Sea, and Shell, which bought its leases from the Bush administration for $2.1 billion, then applied to the Obama administration for a permit to drill.
Advisers to Mr. Obama say that legally, the administration probably had no choice but to process that permit. If he had wanted to block the drilling, Mr. Obama could have faced legal challenges from Shell and may also have had to buy the leases back from the company at a loss to taxpayers.
“If there was a cost to the government of not moving forward, then that would weigh on him,” said Carol Browner, Mr. Obama’s senior energy and climate change adviser in his first term. “He would consider that. He is very practical in that way.”
The Obama administration had initially granted Shell a permit to begin offshore Arctic drilling in 2012, but the company’s first forays were plagued with numerous safety and operational problems. In 2013, the Interior Department said the company could not resume drilling until all safety issues were addressed.
Even with new safety rules in place, opponents of the Arctic drilling worry that the area is extremely remote, with no roads connecting to major cities or deepwater ports within hundreds of miles, making it difficult for cleanup and rescue workers to reach it in case of an accident.
The closest Coast Guard station with equipment for responding to a spill is more than 1,000 miles away. The weather is extreme, with major storms, icy waters and waves up to 50 feet high. The sea is also a major migration route and feeding area for marine mammals, including bowhead whales and walruses.
Senior executives at Total, a French oil giant, and other major oil companies have publicly expressed doubts about the risks of drilling in Alaskan Arctic waters, saying that the costs of preparing for environmental disasters make such operations too costly. They note that the prospects of high oil prices in the future are in doubt and that there are plentiful shale oil prospects on land in the United States and abroad. ConocoPhillips and Statoil, a Norwegian oil company, acquired leases in the Alaskan Arctic but suspended their drilling plans after Shell had its array of logistical problems.
“The dangers of drilling in the Arctic just dwarf those of most other locations,” said David Goldston, the director of the government affairs program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
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