Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumObama Administration Grants Permits For Shell To Drill Deeper In Arctic Ocean (8/17/15)
Just weeks after giving Royal Dutch Shell final approval to begin exploring for oil in the Arctic Ocean, the Obama administration is now allowing the oil company to drill even deeper.
On Monday, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) approved Shells application to modify one if its exploratory drilling permits in the Chukchi Sea, about 140 miles from Alaskas northwest shoreline. That modification means that Shell can burrow into potential oil-bearing reservoirs thousands of feet below the seafloor that previously had been off limits, according to a report in Fuel Fix. In a statement, BSEE said approval had been granted after extensive review and under a robust array of safety requirements. But environmental groups were not pleased.
Todays decision makes it final: President Obama is willing to allow the pristine Chukchi Sea to become an energy sacrifice zone and worsen climate disruption, Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Marissa Knodel said in an emailed statement. President Obama should know better Shell has no business in our Arctic Ocean, and he will bear responsibility for the damage that Shell wreaks there.
BSEEs announcement comes just two weeks before President Obama is scheduled to make a trip to Alaska to discuss the dangers of climate change. According to some studies, all oil and gas from the Arctic must remain in the ground if global temperature rise is to be kept under 2 degrees Celsius.
EDIT
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/08/17/3692413/obama-administration-gives-shell-permission-to-drill-deeper-in-arctic/
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)Oh wait, that's right, Obama wasn't going to stop, at the very least, many thousands of years of history, complexity, and momentum. Nor will the next President, or the one after that, or the one after that, etc.
This is what we do. We explore, we find stuff, and we basically force ourselves to use whatever we find.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)Fracking and drilling for oil. What an energy policy.
Most everyone will forget this in a few days anyway, that's how it works.
The American people have been taken for a ride and played for fools.