General News

The Cost of Alaskan Oil Exploration - 7 May 2008

Environmental and native Alaskan groups have sued the Bush Administration in an effort to stop some oil and gas exploration of the Arctic's Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.

British Petroleum and Shell Oil got federal permits for work off Alaska's north coast for seismic surveys there.

The suit alleges that the permits were granted without required reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, and that Shell's permission to "harass" seals and whales violates the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The lawsuit is the latest volley in a long-running battle over the best use of the nation's far northern territory. The sides have dug in more as the impact of global warming on the Arctic has become more obvious.

The Arctic has melted in unprecedented ways in recent years, and the Bush Administration has been petitioned to protect polar bears and other species with the Endangered Species Act. Listing the polar bear or other denizens of the Arctic would mean setting aside more land that is off-limits for oil and gas development.

The Arctic's Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are sometimes called the Polar Bears Seas, and they support endangered bowhead whales, beluga whales, gray whales, several seal species, Pacific walrus, polar bears, and about 100 fish species. Endangered humpback whales have begun to migrate into the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas in recent years. Many of these species provide important subsistence resources to Native Alaskans.

The REDOIL Network, an Alaska Native grassroots organization that includes members of the Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Gwich'in, Eyak, and Dena'ina Athabascan tribes, joined the suit.

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