Posted on 05/19/2008 5:21:51 AM PDT by thackney
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Friday proposed keeping potentially oil-rich wetlands in Arctic Alaska off-limits to drilling because of their ecological sensitivity, a reversal of its earlier plan.
The Bureau of Land Management proposed a 10-year leasing moratorium for 430,000 acres of wetlands north and east of vast Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Environmentalists and local groups hailed the decision.
"This plan provides a balanced approach to energy development and wildlife protection, and forms a solid basis for the Bureau of Land Management to proceed with an oil and gas lease sale later this year," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a statement.
The area, the North Slope's biggest freshwater lake, is considered potentially rich in oil and gas as well as a critical habitat for migrating birds and caribou. Two years ago, the administration was poised to sell leases to energy companies seeking to drill.
But a lawsuit by environmentalists and native groups forced the agency to revisit the plan in late 2006.
Extensive public comment, input from the local government and practical considerations contributed to the policy change, said Jim Ducker, an environmental program analyst for the BLM.
Ducker noted that the area is 40 to 70 miles away from any oil-field infrastructure.
"Our thinking is, it's pretty darn unlikely that we're going to have any development there" in the near future, he said.
Ducker said the BLM hopes the new plan will result in a lease sale this fall, to encompass essentially the same area offered for lease by the Clinton administration in 1999.
Geologists estimate the area holds 2.8 billion barrels of oil, he said, with 800 million barrels in the deferral area.
Environmentalists were pleased with the BLM's new plan.
"It is a win," said Stan Senner, executive director of Audubon Alaska, one of the groups campaigning for preservation. "I think they've responded to public interest in seeing that the area's protected, and it gives people who care about the place time to work on a permanent solution."
The BLM statement noted that North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta said "The lease sale can proceed while one of the region's most sensitive wildlife habitats will be protected. It's a win-win."
The borough, which opposed oil development in the area because it is important to Inupiat Eskimo hunters, was enlisted to help prepare the new plan after a federal judge voided the previous leasing plan.
The 23 million acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, on the central North Slope, was created in 1923 as a potential source of energy for the military.
Despite sporadic exploration drilling since the 1940s, almost all the successful oil development that ensued on the North Slope occurred on state land east of the reserve.
Industry interest in the petroleum reserve resurfaced in the 1990s, after Arco Alaska Inc. discovered the Alpine oil field on state land bordering the federal unit. Alpine is now operated by Arco successor ConocoPhillips.
While there has never been any commercial oil production in the petroleum reserve, ConocoPhillips and partner Anadarko plan to develop Alpine satellite fields on the federal land there.
Try reading the entire article. The pertinent information is buried in the middle.
Amazingly the my way or da highway types will manage to find fault with this: if we can’t drill it all, we hate Bush and prefer nothing.
Most of the posts seem like Hamas gunmen....they are running into the street and pulling the trigger without taking aim
Just get used to $5.00 gallon gas. That’s the way it will be until our federal government gets their heads out of their @sses. In other words, never.
Thank you. I will research it further.
However, I do not see how any amount of research is going to lead me to the conclusion that REDUCING the amount of land (and therefore obtainable oil) in our National Petroleum Reserve is, in the long run, going to benefit us (the citizens of the U.S.) as regards developing domestic oil production and increasing the supply-side of the equation.
It WILL reduce the available supply, which will make the product more dear, which will lead to higher prices, which will benefit the oil companies; but I do not see it benefitting the average consumer.
They are wet for a few months of the year. Then they become icy.
Combine that with the fact the yearly precipitation is so low, they could be considered a desert, except for all the ponds of water during the summer.
I think the best source of data for North America petroleum production is:
http://www.eia.doe.gov
US Crude Oil Production
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbbl_m.htm
So, they are not really wet-lands; they are more ICE-lands?
What is it they say?
“There’s a place for all of God’s creature: Right next to the mashed potatoes.”
I assume this includes the majestic caribou.
The climate is such that polygon-patterned tundra wetlands are formed during the summer, see post #23.
The flat land, polygon ridges, and melting ice/snow create many, many ponds that hold water. Permafrost areas typically do not drain well.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=70.386153,-152.833557&spn=0.418581,1.856689&t=h&z=9
SAVE THE MOSQUITOES!!!!!!
Beware of the ROOTERS headline...never, ever trust a Lieberal!
Sure, there are lots of them. But their VIEW has been ruined.
LOL!
The bureaucracies have been run run by left leaning Democrats for many years. The presidential appointed leaders are in many cases window dressing. They get their reports and advise from the so-called professionals (bureaucrats). It has been a problem in WDC for many years and if the appointed leader exercises some leadership contrary to the will of old time employees of the department they will begin leaking negative info about him/her and finding a way to neutralize that leaders influence.
The Bureau of Land Management has long been such a case.
“Why despite a decade of ever increasing world demand for Oil do we produce less now then we did in 2000?”
You have to look back at the late 90’s, when oil was 8.50 a barrel. Drilling came to a standstill, low production wells were shut in. Natural gas was going for chump change. Hundreds of thousands of people were put out of work, millions were effected. 39 oil producing states were heavily effected.
This is not something that’s going to heal itself over night, or over a decade. The moratorium on offshore drilling, needs to be lifted immediately and all options need to be explored, especially Natural gas. the one commodity we don’t import.
Dirty little secret too many Americans keep falling for this same Enviro Socialists propaganda myth about "Big Oil" that we have been hearing since the 1970s.
It is the trust fund babies with their "environmental groups" and their fat campaign donations and relentless influence buying who are buying this "do nothing then bitch about it" Energy Policy.
Funny how no one ever remembers that 95% of the votes for the filibuster that repeatedly killed the "Big Oil" Bush's Production 1st Energy plan came from Democrats.
No instead we keep hearing this big lie about "Politicians and the Oil Industry".
"Big Oil" would love to drill more, the reason we don't drill is because our Green Lobby has bought so much political influence that all Democrats, and a chunk of the GOP, are now wholly owned subsidiaries of the Sierra Club.
That is why, despite record demand for Oil on the International Market, the USA is producing even less Oil now then it did in 2000!
They are much tastier that way.
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