National Petroleum Reserve Alaska

The Obama administration on Wednesday announced its plan t o allow oil and gas drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the first time a blueprint has been drawn up for the entire 23-million acre block on Alaska's North Slope. The plan, announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, opens 11.8 million acres for development in an area believed to hold 549 million barrels of economically recoverable oil and 8.7 trillion cubic feet of economically recoverable natural gas. Conservation groups applauded the approach as a reasonable compromise that sets aside five areas that are largely off limits to drilling, including Teshekpuk Lake, the Colville River, Utukok Uplands, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay.  The NPR-A is the largest contiguous piece of public land in the United States and is rich with wildlife, including two caribou herds, polar bears, Grizzly Bears and millions of migratory birds.

The Obama administration on Wednesday announced its plan t o allow oil and gas drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the first time a blueprint has been drawn up for the entire 23-million acre block on Alaska's North Slope. The plan, announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, opens 11.8 million acres for development in an area believed to hold 549 million barrels of economically recoverable oil and 8.7 trillion cubic feet of economically recoverable natural gas. Conservation groups applauded the approach as a reasonable compromise that sets aside five areas that are largely off limits to drilling, including Teshekpuk Lake, the Colville River, Utukok Uplands, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay.  The NPR-A is the largest contiguous piece of public land in the United States and is rich with wildlife, including two caribou herds, polar bears, Grizzly Bears and millions of migratory birds.

Setting the stage for confrontation over the massive National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell announced the state would withdraw from a joint planning process with the federal government that is designed to shape the location and scope of development on one of the nation's largest untapped onshore oil reserves. In a surprise communique late Wednesday, the Republican governor said the state's decision to back out as a cooperating partner reflects the federal Department of Interior's “complete failure” to take into account the state's preferences for development  and the federal government's “complete lack of respect for views of the state.” The state's participation is not essential to completing the plan, but the standoff reflects the deep divisions over how much of the 22 million acres should be protected as habitat for grizzlies, caribou and hundreds of thousands of birds that make the western Arctic tundra their summertime home.

Setting the stage for confrontation over the massive National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell announced the state would withdraw from a joint planning process with the federal government that is designed to shape the location and scope of development on one of the nation's largest untapped onshore oil reserves. In a surprise communique late Wednesday, the Republican governor said the state's decision to back out as a cooperating partner reflects the federal Department of Interior's “complete failure” to take into account the state's preferences for development  and the federal government's “complete lack of respect for views of the state.” The state's participation is not essential to completing the plan, but the standoff reflects the deep divisions over how much of the 22 million acres should be protected as habitat for grizzlies, caribou and hundreds of thousands of birds that make the western Arctic tundra their summertime home.

The sprawling National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the remote Arctic coast contains four times more oil than previously believed, with deposits even greater than those in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, federal geologists reported Thursday. But the U.S. Geological Survey said the deposits are less concentrated and more remote than ANWR's, and would prove more lucrative to exploit only with a substantial increase in oil prices.

The Clinton administration said Thursday that it will open 4 million acres of pristine wetlands and river valleys along Alaska's vast North Slope to new oil production, the biggest expansion of Arctic oil development in decades.

This cold plain has always been a land of mirage. A ground squirrel, spied across the greening tundra, becomes a grizzly. The Brooks Range flips over on its back, and the mountains become mesas. Even the sun, in the perpetual twilight of summer, is trapped in the sky. This is much of what we know of the end of the Earth. To the east is Arco Alaska Inc.'s drilling rig 245, the last in a line of steel towers plumbing the western edge of the Kuparuk oil field.

The Bush administration Friday proposed opening as many as 9 million acres of Alaska's North Slope to oil and gas development, including some areas considered environmentally sensitive. The Interior Department released a draft proposal to offer oil and gas leases in the northwestern section of the government's National Petroleum Reserve, a vast stretch of Arctic tundra, lakes and ponds set aside in the 1920s for potential energy development.

The Interior Department said in Juneau that it is moving forward with an oil and gas lease sale covering nearly 4 million acres in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. The decision includes a plan to set aside more than 600,000 acres of land considered environmentally sensitive. The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is just west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

A judge in Anchorage has blocked part of a federal lease sale of oil-rich land on the North Slope, but the government said it could still sell sections outside an area environmentalists want to preserve for migratory birds and calving caribou. The original sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska would have included the Teshekpuk Lake area, which sits above 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil, federal estimates say.

The Bush administration Friday proposed opening as many as 9 million acres of Alaska's North Slope to oil and gas development, including some areas considered environmentally sensitive. The Interior Department released a draft proposal to offer oil and gas leases in the northwestern section of the government's National Petroleum Reserve, a vast stretch of Arctic tundra, lakes and ponds set aside in the 1920s for potential energy development.

The sprawling National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the remote Arctic coast contains four times more oil than previously believed, with deposits even greater than those in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, federal geologists reported Thursday. But the U.S. Geological Survey said the deposits are less concentrated and more remote than ANWR's, and would prove more lucrative to exploit only with a substantial increase in oil prices.

The Clinton administration said Thursday that it will open 4 million acres of pristine wetlands and river valleys along Alaska's vast North Slope to new oil production, the biggest expansion of Arctic oil development in decades.

This cold plain has always been a land of mirage. A ground squirrel, spied across the greening tundra, becomes a grizzly. The Brooks Range flips over on its back, and the mountains become mesas. Even the sun, in the perpetual twilight of summer, is trapped in the sky. This is much of what we know of the end of the Earth. To the east is Arco Alaska Inc.'s drilling rig 245, the last in a line of steel towers plumbing the western edge of the Kuparuk oil field.

The Clinton administration said it has agreed to explore the oil prospects in an Arctic Coast petroleum reserve, a move Alaska had sought to boost its sagging oil income. The Interior Department plans to study potential drilling areas and the environmental steps that would be needed to protect wildlife in the northeastern part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton signed off on a plan Thursday for managing 8.8 million acres of Alaska's North Slope and opening most of the acreage to oil and gas development. Some of the drilling could occur in areas important for migratory birds, whales and wildlife. The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management will use the plan to manage a northwest portion of the government's 23.5-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.