Pro-drilling OCS energy advocates heavily dominated a public hearing in Anchorage June 29 on Lease Sale 193.
Approximately 100 Alaskans attended the hearing and of those who testified, 32 spoke in favor of Lease Sale 193 while 11 urged the federal government to dismiss it. Pro-drilling advocates included private citizens and representatives from virtually every Alaska industry and sector of the economy, including mining, timber, tourism and organized labor.
Speaking against exploration were representatives of a number of international and national environmental activist groups, including the Pew Environmental Group, Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, and Ocean Conservancy, along with several private citizens.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) recently released a new Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the 2008 Chukchi Sea lease sale in which Shell, ConocoPhillips, Statoil, and others had purchased leases for oil and gas exploration. In July 2010, the U.S. District Court in Alaska, in response to an appeal against the lease sale, ordered BOEM to rework some technical aspects of the original Environmental Impact Statement for the sale, and the court banned lease related activities in the Chukchi Sea until BOEMRE prepared a new SEIS to the court’s satisfaction.
The federal agency initially released a draft SEIS in October, but after reviewing public comments on the draft, BOEMRE chose to add an analysis of a very large oil spill in the Chukchi. The scenario of 2.2 million barrels spilled from a blowout lasting 74 days is considered a theoretical “worst case” for drilling across the large lease sale area. That analysis has now been completed and is included in the new draft SEIS.
A Final SEIS will provide the Secretary of the Interior with sufficient information and analyses to make an informed decision on whether to affirm, modify, or cancel Lease Sale 193. No drilling can take place until the final EIS is issued and Sale 193 is affirmed. In its comments, RDC urged BOEMRE to affirm the lease sale as held.
OCS oil and gas development is absolutely critical to Alaska’s future economy. With the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System now running at one-third capacity, exploration blocked in ANWR, and non-development activists working toward Wilderness designations in the National Petroleum Reserve, nothing less than Alaska’s future economy is at stake.
Development of potentially immense oil and gas deposits in the Chukchi Sea would significantly boost the economy for a generation and extend the life of the oil pipeline. Without new oil production, TAPS could be uneconomic to operate at some point in the next decade.
“If there is no oil and gas development in ANWR and the OCS, and the best prospects in NPR-A are taken off the table, the federal government must then accept the consequences, including heavier reliance on foreign oil, soaring trade deficits, a weaker national economy, and compromised national security,” said RDC Deputy Director Carl Portman. “For Alaskans, our future will be bleak with the state losing much of its economic base.”
OCS production could provide an annual average of 54,700 jobs nationwide with an estimated cumulative payroll of $145 billion over the next 50 years. Moreover, revenues generated from OCS development in the Arctic could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues to federal, state and local governments over a 50-year period.
The potential recoverable reserves offshore Alaska is more than all the current total proven U.S. oil reserves of approximately 21 billion barrels.
Please see RDC’s comments.
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