Shell's Arctic Drilling Plan: Another Disaster Waiting to Happen

[Playinghardball]

Source: Rolling Stone
By Tim Dickinson

The Interior Department has greenlighted Royal Dutch Shell's exploration plans for offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean after finding "no evidence" that a potential spill larger than the Exxon Valdez will "significantly affect the quality of the human environment." The decision is premised on the oil company's fantastical claims that it will be capable of recovering 90 percent of any oil that hits the water after a Gulf-style blowout.

Shell is now on track to begin Arctic drilling by next July, pending final permitting and (most likely) fierce litigation.

When BP's DeepWater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico last spring, Royal Dutch Shell had been poised to begin drilling in the Arctic. But the dangers of extreme oil exploration laid bare by the catastrophe made the plan politically untenable, at least in the short term. Interior suspended the issuance of Arctic drilling permits at the same time as it placed a moratorium on deepwater permitting for the Gulf.

Opponents of Arctic oil exploration I interviewed at the time feared that the administration's move was just for optics, and that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar remained committed to getting Shell into the frigid waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas as soon as public outrage subsided. Today, that cynicism appears to have been well-founded.

More at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/shells-arctic-drilling-plan-another-disaster-waiting-to-happen-20110808

[Lint Head]

1. As long a fascist corporations have a love affair with oil this will not end.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

And....as long as they own and control our regulators and politicians. n/t

[abelenkpe]

2. :P nt

[Richard D]

3. We could have never foreseen . . . .

(no text necessary)

[truebrit71]

4. ....and the Interior Department continues to be a doormat for Big Business...

...and ranchers...

Whodathunkit with old Kenny Salazar at the reins....:sarcasm:

This fucking guy makes James Watt look like Al Gore...

[DonRedwood]

5. oily, dirty, poisoned snow..... I can see it now....

[gratuitous]

6. Yeah, this should turn out well

How does the Interior Department get so bone stupid as to believe an oil company about the prospects for a catastrophic spill and the company's ability to respond to it? You know, sometimes I get the feeling that the Obama administration isn't very good on some progressive and liberal ideals.

[jwirr]

7. Their real plan: spill a lot of black oil in the Arctic and then it will melt

faster - when the ice is all gone there will be plenty of places to drill. :sarcasm: