Some offshore Arctic waters to be leased for energy drilling, US says

Source: MSNBC.com

Parts of America’s Arctic waters, long a battleground between environmentalists and the energy industry, will be open for oil and natural gas drilling in four years, the Obama administration said Tuesday -- the same day Shell announced it had successfully tested a new spill containment system for its planned Arctic exploration this summer.

Details will be released Thursday, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters the idea is to adopt "targeted leasing" -- opening some areas in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas for drilling while protecting others critical for native subsistence and ecosystem health.

"There is no viable way to clean up oil spilled into the Arctic Ocean," Kristen Miller of the Alaska Wilderness League said in a statement. "The Arctic is perhaps the most extreme region on the planet with subzero temperatures, hurricane force storms and long periods of darkness. Spill response capacity is practically nonexistent in these remote, icy waters -- the nearest Coast Guard station is more than 1,000 miles away."

Shell is required to have a flotilla of spill response boats should its capping system fail, and Salazar said no commercial drilling would proceed if Interior concludes that spills cannot be contained


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