Much of the nation's anger is righteously focused on BP. However, is that our only Big Problem? Or should we examine the larger folly of the nation's offshore oil drilling policy? Earlier this week, Alaska Wilderness League members reminded Senate hearing attendees that 43 days remain until Shell starts drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska. The Minerals Management Service has approved Shell's plans, but four additional permits have yet to be issued.
Is Shell a not-so-Bad Polluter? Does it have a good side? Evidence below the fold, but you'll have to decide what the evidence proves.
Shell has offered new reassurances that its Chukchi Sea drilling will be safer. It'll have a cofferdam, with special methane-hydrate protections, onsite. And Shell would be ready to apply dispersal agents below water "at the source of any oil flow" after "all necessary permits are acquired." Read Shell's letter (5 page pdf) promising "a program that meets the highest operational and environmental standards." After all, what could go wrong with exploratory drilling in turbulent waters, heavy fog and shifting ice hundreds of miles from deep-water ports?
What a thoughtful business! BP won't or can't commit to cleaning up a Beaufort Sea spill, but Shell can try things that haven't worked in the Gulf -- because the fragile Arctic environment is the best place to tweak a failed experiment.
But what about Shell's reputation for oil spills and human rights abuses in Nigeria? Shell is the largest oil producer in the Niger Delta, Africa's equivalent of the Mississippi River Delta, where it conducts extensive deepwater drilling operations. Shell spilled 14,000 tons of oil into the Delta last year, more than doubling the prior year's record, but it's not Shell's fault.
No worries! This week, a visionary remediation plan was laid out for Shell:
"Recent events in the Gulf of Mexico demand change," said Shell spokesperson Bernadette Hopma. "The expected hurricane of regulation and policy change across industry, resulting from the negligent practices by one pair of companies especially, means that all of us need to try to push harder in the interests of long-term survival. Shell will therefore distinguish ourselves by being the first oil company in history to cease taking risks with important delta ecosystems. The unique geology underlying these deltas have sustained our shareholders very well, but we must not let that kind of sustainability come at the the expense of the biodiversity, carbon absorption and O2 production that are their true worth."
Highlights of the Shell and SPDC CSR-ND Plan include:
... A commitment to cap oil production at current levels until 2015, and then to gradually reduce production to 10 percent of current levels by 2050, while compensating for this reduction through the development of renewable energy sources.
Oh. Okay. Well, as long as that's true, Shell should receive its final permits to drill in the Chukchi Sea as soon as the temporary moratorium expires May 28. Even if its prior MMS permits were obtained under, ah, interesting circumstances.
If, on the other hand, your Snark-O-Meter has picked up something odd in a couple of links, click here to sign a National Wildlife Federation petition asking Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to deny Shell its final permits. Or, if you prefer, click here to sign an Earthjustice petition. Or (h/t AngelaJean) email Salazar directly. Or all of the above.
Salazar is rumored to be vulnerable to public pressure. Tell him not to allow any new drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, by Shell or anyone else. It's necessary to hold BP accountable, but we don't need to return to our same oiled, same oiled ways in which we drink the planet dry.