A federal appellate court has just voided a Bush-era drill-baby-drill oil lease in Alaska for failing to consider the environmental impact to marine life. This is very good news for the polar bears, whales, seals, and other animals of the Bering sea, and those people who care about them.
In 2005, the Bush administration attempted to expand an oil/gas leasing program in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas, in Alaska's far northwest corner. Point Hope, Alaska is the nearest land, and the residents of Point Hope are heavily dependent on the sea for their livelihood. Point Hope seems to be a dismal place: short summers with highs up to 50 degrees, hardpack snowfall by November of each year, and the relocation of the entire village in the 1970s due to erosion. The people of the village have strongly opposed any oil and gas drilling as a threat to their way of life. Global warming will also require the relocation of their village, again, at a minimum.
The federal government has had 9 million acres of the Beaufort sea available for drilling for a while. The 2005 expansion would have included 33 million acres of the Beaufort, 39 million acres of the Chukchi, and 5.4 million acres of the Bering sea. The Point Hope residents complained to Governor Palin, to no avail (anyone who paid any attention during the 2008 campaign knows her response).
And today, a federal appellate panel has voided that expansion. Seems that the Bushies forgot about the need for an environmental impact report. The expansion has been the subject of a long court battle, with stays issued, but today the expansion has been cancelled completely. A bastion of journalistic objectivity, the AP, weeps:
The decision comes at a time when oil and gas producers are finding it increasingly difficult to find new reserves and boost production, at home and abroad. Output from the biggest U.S. oil companies has largely been in decline in the past few years.
Another breath of fresh air to go along with the EPA's decision today (see TomP's
recommended diary on greenhouse gases as a health threat)!