Interior Department to Open Alaskan Land to Oil Drilling--WaPo

[Gloria]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/11/AR2006011102211_pf.html

Interior Department to Open Alaskan Land to Oil Drilling
Environmentalists Question Statement That Exploration Can Have Minimal Impact on Wildlife

By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 12, 2006; A08

The Interior Department yesterday agreed to open about 400,000 acres on Alaska's North Slope for exploratory oil drilling, an area that previously had been off limits because of concerns about the impact on wildlife.

Officials said they would lease acreage in the northeastern corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil companies to provide access to domestic oil supplies.

"We recognize . . . the energy needs of this nation," said Susan Childs, an official with the Bureau of Land Management. "So, hopefully, this will alleviate some of the pressure."

Government officials said that the area of the preserve opened yesterday has significant potential for oil development. They estimate it contains about 2 billion barrels of oil that is economically recoverable, along with 3.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The United States consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil per day.

Much of the 23.5 million-acre petroleum reserve already is open to oil development. The reserve, created in 1923, is located west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, long a flashpoint in the debate over allowing oil drilling versus protecting the environment.

MORE

[shance]

1. But we just voted on this.

Didn't we?

[hatrack]

11. Different area - this is west of the Refuge

It's the National Petroleum Reserve, which I believe is substantially larger than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

[anotherdrew]

2. pump everything we got, it'll last a decade or so... maybe two

then the energy needs of this nation will have some real fun.

[Erika]

5. Republicanism means take it now while you can

and the hell with future generations. That is the singular message the W administration lives by.

[anotherdrew]

8. and why are we charging ourselves for "our" oil?

Shouldn't the profits go to offset the budget deficit or something? We could build and maintain the equipment at cost even...

[Erika]

3. So who are the oil companies?

Is the North Slope still shipping oil to Asia to profit the oil companies with no profits to anyone else?

W is really dirty. Destroying our environment to sell our crude to Asia. But his family is in the oil business as is his globalists friends. There only hope is they can rip us off before we can protest it.

[bluestateguy]

4. That should lower gas prices by about a penny

In a year or two.

[High Plains]

19. and for a year or two.

[roguevalley]

6. you do realize with the ice melt, this will be under water in five years

[Erika]

7. True. I was in Port Whittier a few years ago and was shocked

at how much the glaciers have receded.

[Up2Late]

9. Maybe they are planning to drill on the high lands?

The APR does go up to near the Continental divide.

[Gloria]

12. Heard a long discussion about permafrost this AM on Radio

Canada Intl/CBC. An American scientist in Colorado and a prof named Pollard at McGill in Canada.
The American outlined the scenarios of thawing permafrost...the concern about methane gas release which would accelerate warming. They had comments by a native Canadian who said that they no longer knew when the herds would arrive or leave and this seriously affected their ability to survive in their traditional way. The prof from McGill said the thawing of the would be "spottier" that what the American model said, but he still said there was a problem.
Both mentioned that things like pipelines would have to be constructed to adapt to the changes in the permafrost....

[Child_Of_Isis]

10. So, it's voted down but they go ahead anyway?

Wasn't this just voted down?

[SomewhereOutThere424]

13. I can't wait

until those oil hungry bastards and animal torturers set up a big camp there. Then the whole thing sinks a year later due to permafrost :rofl:

I wonder if sinking alive into frozen mud would give any of those big oil people a kind of epiphany about destroying the environment?

[Clara T]

14. US opens Alaskan area to oil leases

US opens Alaskan area to oil leases
Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:36 AM ET
By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The U.S. government paved the way on Wednesday for oil drilling in an Alaskan region used by migrating caribou and birds, three weeks after Congress blocked energy development in the nearby Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Interior Department gave final approval to develop the Teshekpuk Lake region, setting up an oil-lease sale in September. The decision came a year after the Bureau of Land Management recommended drilling in the region, which lies west of the wildlife refuge on Alaska's North Slope.

Teshekpuk's 389,000 acres had been protected from oil exploration since the Reagan Administration. In 1998, when former President Bill Clinton opened some areas of the North Slope to the oil industry, the Teshekpuk Lake area was kept off-limits.

The Arctic wildlife refuge, or ANWR, is 19.6 million acres, about 50 times larger than the Teshekpuk Lake region. The U.S. Senate last month once again blocked attempts to open ANWR to drilling.
The lake is the biological "heart" of the region, said Dora Nukapigak, a resident of the Inupiat village of Nuiqsut, the community closest to Teshekpuk Lake. The lake is about 80 miles
east of Point Barrow, Alaska's northernmost point.

"It's our garden. It's where we gather our food," Nukapigak said.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-01-12T063553Z_01_KNE223690_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-ALASKA.xml

[Deja Q]

15. They know the end is near.

May as well seal it by opening things up, and subsequently accelerating the frying of this planet due to more 'global warming' caused by atypical climate conditions brought about by the drilling and mining equipment.

[NVMojo]

16. we have been so fucked ...

[and-justice-for-all]

17. Horrible and Tragic..

..Instead of investing in say GMs Hydrogen Auto program, they want to go out and DESTROY land and wildlife. Lets Poison the air and pollute the water and all the while interrupting or completly destroying migrating animals...I HATE THIS GOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I live in Indiana and today, January 12th..WINTER..it was 60 degrees!!! Thats not normal. but, Global Warming is only a fucking theory!

[belpejic]

18. I'm in NYC

And I've been wearing fleece jackets all week. It's actually starting to depress me -- this is when I should be wearing all of my toasty clothes.

This Alaska stuff tears out my heart. I love it up there -- some of my best memories ever -- and this pursuit of sulfur-rich oil is so futile. I swear it will all get shipped overseas. It's just another brazen giveaway to the oil industry, which hardly needs taxpayer help these days.