On August 4, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) conditionally approved Shell's plan to drill up to four exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea of Arctic Alaska starting July 2012. A Los Angeles Times editorial correctly opined, “Shell Oil's conditional permit to drill exploratory wells off Alaska should not have been granted. The hazards of drilling in such waters are in some ways worse than operating thousands of feet underwater. ... It's too early for any approval, conditional or otherwise." Shell still needs several more permits including an air quality permit from the Environmental Protection Agency before they can do any drilling in the Arctic seabed. We must stop it.
Soon I'll tell you how BOEMRE is ignoring science to fast track Shell's dangerous drilling plan, but first here is a brief history of how we got here.
During the Bush administration Shell bought leases in both the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas — Lease Sales 195 and 202 in the Beaufort Sea in 2005 and 2007 respectively; and Lease Sale 193 in the Chukchi Sea in 2008. Then, in 2009 the Mineral Management Service (MMS), which is now BOEMRE, approved Shell's plan to drill five exploratory wells — two in the Beaufort Sea and three in the Chukchi Sea. Following year on March 31 President Obama announced his new energy proposal that included opening up vast areas of America's coastlines, including Beaufort and Chukchi Seas to oil and gas development. Three weeks later BP's Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil and an enormous amount of methane. Read the full report here.
Source: By Subhankar Banerjee, Climate Story Tellers.
