The Interior Department of the United States is considering a disastrous plan to allow Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean (Beaufort and Chukchi seas) in 2015. Submit via CREDO Action a public comment now, today, before 11:59 p.m. Monday, December 22 deadline. Or via Office of the Federal register (Regulations.gov) Fill the required fields and then preview and/or before 11:59 p.m. Monday, December 22 submit your comment to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for review. All comments are considered public and will be posted online once the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has reviewed them. Here are tips on crafting an effective “comment” or “Public Submission”.
Here are just a few of the reasons to say No Shell Drilling.
For background, Please look at the U.S. Geological Survey assessment released July 23 2008, the first publicly available petroleum resource estimate of the entire area north of the Arctic Circle. Podcast audio interview of U.S.G.S. scientists Brenda Pierce and Don Gautier here and another more technical interview of Don Gautier on new estimates of the amount of undiscovered oil and gas in the Arctic here. See Map by Geology.com and MapResources: Arctic Oil and Natural Gas Provinces Map: The United States Geological Survey estimates that over 87% of the Arctic's oil and natural gas resource (about 360 billion barrels oil equivalent) is located in seven Arctic basin provinces: Amerasia Basin, Arctic Alaska Basin, East Barents Basin, East Greenland Basin, West Greenland East Canada Basin, East Greenland Rift Basin, West Siberian Basin and the Yenisey-Khatang Basin..... In response to a federal court order, U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued a suspension of operations for all Chukchi Sea leases issued in Lease Sale 193, which stops the lease term from running while sister agency Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completes this Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS). The suspension remains in effect until BOEM completes its environmental review, as directed by the court. The Notice of Availability for the Draft Supplemental EIS started a 45-day public comment period that ends 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday, Dec. 22nd regarding the Chukchi Sea Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Lease Sale 193, a lease that Shell wants to extend for another five (5) years.
Allowing Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean would be disastrous for the climate, the improvement of Arctic peoples' livelihoods and will certainly lead to oil spills that are increasingly impossible to clean up as surrounding waters warm due to climate change in which the Arctic is heating faster than any other equivalent sized region by which I mean both the biosphere region and
the geopolitical region. I urge you to reject Lease Sale 193 and make the Arctic off limits to oil drilling. The Dec.10, 2014 (eighth annual) installment of
NOAA's Arctic Report Card (Update 2014) confirms that Arctic air temperatures are rising at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole. A
March 10, 2013 report was basically the same. The
U.S. must not undermine international cooperation in the Arctic region amid these uncertain geopolitical times by granting the Arctic access that Shell seeks.
Shell paid cheap, a paltry sum of $2.1 billion to the U.S. government in 2008 to lease the area on an original estimates of just 1 billion barrels of oil. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management now estimates Shell could produce as much as 4.3 billion barrels. Interior acknowledges that there is a 75 percent chance that one or more large oil spills (more than 1,000 barrels, or 42,000 gallons, of oil) would occur if the leases are developed. Currently it is thought there is no way to effectively clean or contain an oil spill in Arctic Ocean conditions. The U.S. Coast Guard investigation released in April 2014 found that Royal Dutch Shell and its subcontractor, Edison Chouest, severely underestimated the risk of towing an un-propelled oil rig through the Gulf of Alaska in a winter storm of December, 2012, when Shell let the Kulluck drilling rig run aground. USCG assistant commandant for prevention policy, Rear Adm. Joseph Servidio said, “In this case, the risks associated with a single-vessel tow by a new purpose-built vessel of a unique conical-shaped hull, with people aboard, in winter Alaskan waters where weather systems and seas are expected to rapidly develop, were extremely high.”
Allowing Shell to drill the Arctic Ocean decimates the credibility the U.S. will have when in April 2015 the U.S. has a rare chance to showcase its international credibility as an Arctic leader in assumption of its two-year responsibility to chair the Arctic Council (a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses primarily environmental protection and sustainable development issues in the Arctic region), a situation that will not recur until 2031. The U.S. has only this brief window of opportunity to assume responsibility for shaping international policies to advance U.S. national interests tied to far northern resources with sensible territorial management, and improve the livelihoods of Arctic peoples, including many indigenous nations with whom the U.S. holds both its own Constitutional and the Arctic Council mandates to honor native sovereignty (nation-to-nation relations).
Despite the mid-2014 appointment of former U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr. as the U.S. Special Representative for the Arctic and a number of recently released national road-maps and strategies, the Arctic remains a policy and investment afterthought. Investments the U.S. must make should be driven not by Shell Oil Company profit motives but instead by realization and wide publicity of the reality that the Arctic has been warming since the 1960's. Regional warming has accelerated significantly in the past 30 years. Ever greater numbers of scientists predict the Arctic will change from ice-covered to seasonally ice-free by the 2030's, and what ice remains will be more variable in both coverage and thickness. This will accelerate the peril of extinction events for species, including humans, too many and yet unidentified to enumerate. Also true is that the Arctic Council needs Russia, and is supportive of Moscow's continued engagement in its work, said Admiral Robert J. Papp, Jr., US Special Representative to the Arctic during the September 2014 conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. That is where and when the U.S. said it will keep broad priorities including improved economic conditions for Arctic inhabitants, safe shipping, sustainable resource development, protecting and adapting the Arctic environment at a time of rapid climate change.
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Flabbergastingly, the U.S. was the only Arctic Council member state delinquent enough to not have sent its delegation to the Fourth International Meeting of the Arctic Council member states held in Naryan-Mar under the auspices of the Russian Security Council on August 6-7, 2014. While U.S. was unaccountably absent, Arctic Council members Russia, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland with the Arctic Council observer states of China, South Korea, Singapore and India were all present discussing main topics-issues of safety in the Arctic, infrastructure, and the Northern Sea Route. This Monday Denmark claimed the North Pole as seen in reports from Canada (12-14-14) and Britain (12-15-14). Denmark, Russia, Norway, Canada and the U.S. said in 2008 that the territorial dispute should be settled under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. But the United States’ refuses to ratify United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in myopic GOP-led foreign policy decisions that grow danger for the credibility, passage and rights of all U.S. interests in the Arctic whether public or private.
Allowing Shell to drill Arctic Ocean within Lease Sale 193 will put the lie to another broad goal of U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council: to develop a robust public outreach program and to educate United Statesans as well as citizens of other nations on the importance of the Arctic and its potential global impacts.
Shell must not be allowed to risk wreaking environmental and international havoc (by which I mean wide, general destruction with devastation, great confusion and disorder) as both Arctic tourism and business are increasing, Alaskan and Native Nations ports, airports and cities are becoming more important conduits for global commerce. Private, domestic and multinational companies seeking to realize these opportunities are becoming driving engines of local economies and scientific communities, as well as a potential sources of tax and other revenue for state and federal bureaus. With similar investment opportunities opening in non-U.S. Arctic areas, the decision on whether these companies choose to invest in the United States will be based in part on the comparative infrastructure and regulatory climate of U.S. and Native Nations' jurisdictions.
Instead of prompting Shell actions to recklessly drill the Arctic, the U.S. should promote the implementation of the Arctic Council’s 2011 Search and Rescue and 2013 Oil Spill Preparedness and Response agreements through concrete protocols and national actions. And the U.S. should embrace more meaningful oil spill prevention commitments, such as higher liability caps. The U.S. chairmanship must promote the importance of the Polar Code, particularly Part Two which addresses pollution prevention and encourage the resolution of maritime boundary issues, including U.S. ratification of UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – UNCLOS - also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty). All the other Arctic states and actors will be watching the U.S. to see if it is capable of providing strong leadership on these key issues. Permitting Shell to have Lease Sale 193 belies (shows to be false or wrong) the ability of the U.S. to assume strong leadership with integrity in Arctic affairs.
Via Office of the Federal register (Regulations.gov) Fill the required fields and then preview and/or before Monday, December 22 submit your comment to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for review. All comments are considered public and will be posted online once the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has reviewed them. Alternatively, via CREDO Action, Submit a public comment opposing now, today, before the Monday, December 22 deadline.
Thank You for doing all this !