ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
came to Anchorage on Monday and said the Obama administration supports
more oil drilling in Alaska, potentially including offshore Arctic
development.
Salazar joined Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and Rhode
Island Sen. Jack Reed, both Democrats, for a meeting with Alaska
businesspeople and said the president’s feeling toward Arctic offshore
drilling is “Let’s take a look at what’s up there and see what it is we
can develop.” But any Arctic oil development must be done carefully, he
said. Salazar said the Arctic lacks needed infrastructure for responding
to potential offshore oil spills and cited painful lessons from the
Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
“Not the mightiest companies with multibillion-dollar
pockets were able to do what needed to be done in a timely basis, and
the representations of preparation simply turned out not to be true from
the oil companies that had a legal obligation to shut down that kind of
an oil spill. …
When you look at the Arctic itself, we recognize that
there are different realities — the ocean is a much shallower ocean,
conditions are very different than we had in the Gulf of Mexico. (But)
there are challenges that are unique to the Arctic,” Salazar told Alaska
reporters.
Salazar said a step toward a solution is “having an
agency within the United States government and Interior, the Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management and Regulation, that can in fact do its job.”
The agency is the successor to the Minerals Management Service, which
was discredited after the Gulf spill.
“Secondly, there will be conditions that will be
imposed on whatever drilling that does occur in either the Beaufort or
the Chukchi on down the road that will incorporate the lessons that have
been learned (from the Gulf spill),” he said. “And thirdly, there is
also a recognition we have that there is additional work that needs to
be done with respect to the understanding of the Arctic, the science and
the need for having effective oil spill response,” Salazar said.
Begich, said he was encouraged the administration is
taking steps toward Arctic development while working out what Coast
Guard and other resources would be needed in the area.
Last week the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement gave Shell a conditional
exploration permit that covers a program that would drill four wells
over two years in Camden Bay of the Beaufort Sea, due north of the
coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But the permit is
contingent on many other federal permits and approvals, including
oil-spill response plans and marine mammal protection.
Shell is also seeking authorization to drill in the Chukchi Sea.
Shell’s Alaska government affairs manager, Cam
Toohey, was at Monday’s meeting with Salazar and Begich at the Cook
Inlet Regional Inc. building in Midtown Anchorage. Toohey said the oil
company has seen what it considers an improved attitude among the
Interior Department toward providing the certainty needed to invest in
projects.
Obama in July signed an executive order to create a
new federal working group tasked with having agencies better coordinate
Alaska oil and gas permitting and other regulatory oversight. The White
House said the working group, which is overseen by Deputy Interior
Secretary David Hayes, is designed to simplify oil and gas
decision-making in Alaska by bringing together federal agencies to
collaborate as they evaluate permits and environmental reviews. Hayes
joined Salazar in traveling to Alaska this week.
Salazar said he hoped it would help with instances
like the dispute among agencies over a permit for a bridge crossing of
the Colville River, which would let companies develop the onshore CD-5
drill site within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Salazar on Monday reiterated Obama’s support for drilling in the NPR-A.
He said the president wants to increase the domestic
energy supply, reduce consumption through measures like greater fuel
efficiency, and develop alternative fuels.
Obama does not support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Salazar said there are places like NPR-A to focus on
drilling “where we don’t have to deal with that particular controversy.”
The Alaskan business people that Salazar, Begich and Reed met with in
Anchorage on Monday morning were particularly concerned about what CIRI
President Margie Brown described as the “regulatory morass that we find
ourselves in.” Deputy Interior Secretary Hayes after the meeting went to
have a discussion with the governor’s office, which has loudly and
repeatedly complained about such regulations.
Begich and Salazar also met with the Alaska
Federation of Natives on Monday before Salazar, his deputy, Hayes, and
Sen. Reed went on to Fairbanks to tour the Bureau of Land Management
wildfire-fighting facilities along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Reed is chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee with jurisdiction
over the Interior Department.
The agenda for Salazar’s Alaska trip also includes a
visit to the Alpine oil field on the North Slope, a flyover of the NPR-A
and a meeting with Shell officials in Barrow on offshore exploration.
Murkowski, a Republican, will accompany him.
Salazar was in Kodiak over the weekend and will
conclude his trip Wednesday with a visit to the Eielson Visitors Center
in Denali National Park and Preserve.
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