In the push to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development, the big oil companies and their allies in the Congress, Administration, and Alaska state government say drilling on Alaska’s North Slope has been clean and environmentally benign. They profess a commitment to strict environmental regulation, and they assert that new technologies – particularly ice roads and directional drilling – will reduce even further any impact of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Three decades of oil industry public relations have drilled away at one familiar theme that belies the reality on the ground: that drilling can be done in an “environmentally responsible” fashion. The reality is that the sprawling industrial infrastructure and pollution associated with drilling on the North Slope continue to have pervasive, lasting, and serious environmental consequences.