Although it may not appear in the credits, the Arctic Ocean is one of the stars of this week’s release from Universal Pictures, “Big Miracle,” featuring Drew Barrymore as an activist who helps rescue three endangered gray whales after they become trapped by sea ice off the coas
This map breaks down Alaska's North Slope by sold, deferred, active, and potential leases, as well as Barrow Native Lands and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation Surface and Subsurface Lands.
Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said the Louisiana court decision has no effect on the administration's decision to suspend until 2011 new offshore drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
"We wish it did," said Julie Hasquet, a spokeswoman for Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska. "But we don't think it does."
There is an important way for President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to show they are absorbing the lessons of the gulf oil spill and to reaffirm their pledge to proceed cautiously with offshore drilling in the future. That is to withhold the permits Shell Oil needs to proceed with a highly controversial drilling project in the Arctic Ocean.
A proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean as early as this summer received initial permits from the Minerals Management Service office in Alaska at the same time federal auditors were questioning the office about its environmental review process.
The approvals also came after many of the agency’s most experienced scientists had left, frustrated that their concerns over environmental threats from drilling had been ignored.
Consider that while the Gulf "cleanup" efforts have been stalled by 8-foot seas, waves in the Arctic can swell to 20 feet on a semi-regular basis. In the icy north, winds that are famously stronger than those of the Gulf punish any vessel on the water.
