Obama Approves Shell Drilling in Arctic Ocean Coral Davenport - The New York Times
go to original May 11, 2015

A group of kayakers let out a yell after successfully pulling up a protest sign as they practice for an upcoming demonstration against Arctic oil drilling, in Elliott Bay in Seattle. (Associated Press)

The Obama administration gave conditional approval on Monday to allow Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. to start drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean this summer.

The approval is a major victory for Shell and the rest of the petroleum industry, which has sought for years to drill in the remote waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, which are believed to hold vast reserves of oil and gas.

...The Interior Department decision is a devastating blow to environmentalists, who have pressed the Obama administration to reject proposals for offshore Arctic drilling. Environmentalists say that a drilling accident in the icy and treacherous Arctic waters could have far more devastating consequences than the deadly Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010, when an oil rig explosion killed 11 men and sent millions of barrels of oil spewing into the water.

The move came just four months after the Obama administration opened up a portion of the Atlantic coast to new offshore drilling, adding a new chapter to the president’s environmental legacy.

...Environmental groups denounced the move and said that Shell had not demonstrated that it can drill safely in the Arctic Ocean.

“Once again, our government has rushed to approve risky and ill-conceived exploration in one of the most remote and important places on Earth,” said Susan Murray, a vice president of Oceana, an environmental group. “Shell’s need to validate its poorly planned investment in the U.S. Arctic Ocean is not a good reason for the government to allow the company to put our ocean resources at risk. Shell has not shown that it is prepared to operate responsibly in the Arctic Ocean, and neither the company nor our government has been willing to fully and fairly evaluate the risks of Shell’s proposal.”

Read the rest at The Seattle Times

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