Obama administration officials have said they will weigh the nation's energy needs against the desire to protect crucial resources. But with active North Slope fields reaching the end of their production life, the allure of an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas off Alaska's shores is strong.
Gov. Sarah Palin has warned that without new drilling, the 800-mile-long trans-Alaska oil pipeline could be forced to shut down in as little as 10 years, crippling America's hopes for energy independence, not to mention her state.
"The Alaska offshore is home to some of the most prolific, undeveloped hydrocarbon basins in the world -- reserves that would not only fuel Alaska's economy for decades to come, but oil and gas reserves that would also provide the nation with much-needed energy security," said Pete Slaiby, general manager of Shell Exploration and Production Co.'s Alaska operations.
The company, which had been planning the first major offshore lease development in the Beaufort Sea before it was blocked, argued its case to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar during a recent hearing in Anchorage.
The Interior Department is evaluating not only the 2007-12 offshore drilling plan struck down by the court, but also a more ambitious program rolled out in the waning hours of the Bush administration to expand leases in the Arctic Ocean, from the 74.5 million acres now being offered to 127.5 million by 2015.
Conservationists worry that a major oil spill could knock down the region's delicate house of cards: The ice pack in 2007 was at its lowest level since satellite monitoring began in 1979, putting tremendous stress on animals such as walruses, seals and polar bears that depend on the ice to hunt, rest and avoid the oil industrial zones onshore.
More than 500 spills of varying sizes occur on the North Slope each year, on average. The federal government recently estimated there was a 40% chance of a large crude spill from development in the Chukchi Sea. And though spills in open water are notoriously hard to clean up -- Prince William Sound still has oil on some of its beaches from the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster -- one occurring amid tight chunks of broken ice would present even more problems.
"It is beyond the pale of stupidity that, in the face of everything that's happening in the Arctic, that we would launch a drilling program," said Jim Ayers, a vice president of the marine conservation group Oceana.
