A few short weeks ago, just before Christmas, a defense bill that included provision for drilling in ANWR was defeated. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief, though it was not likely to be the last attempt.
Now, the Department of the Interior has opened a vast area west of ANWR to drilling.
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 10:25 a.m. ET Jan. 12, 2006
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has opened nearly half a million acres of federal land in northeastern Alaska to oil drilling — a move blasted by environmentalists but praised by industry, which notes the area is in a long-designated petroleum reserve.
The area includes important wetlands and wildlife habitat.
The Interior Department on Wednesday said it would allow oil development in virtually all of the wetlands surrounding Lake Teshekpuk in the northeast corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The lake region includes one of the most important molting areas in the Arctic for wild geese and areas sought out by caribou herds for calving.
The federal government had previously designated a large area as a National Petroleum Reserve area (NPRA). It included the Lake Teshekpuk area.
In 1923 the government set aside the 22 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska for its oil and gas resources. It is located west of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields; the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which has been at the center of a drilling dispute in Congress, is east of Prudhoe Bay.
But a large area which includes the wetland area around Lake Teshekpuk was not made available for development when the rest was in the 1990s.
Most of the NPRA was opened to development in the 1990s, but not the 4.6 million-acre northeast section that includes the ecologically sensitive Lake Teshekpuk region. It had been expected that most of the northeast region also was slated for leasing, but environmentalists had hoped to keep oil rigs out of the region around Lake Teshekpuk.
Naturally, a great deal of interest in the leases is anticipated.
Drilling in the region would bring more companies to Alaska, said Judy Brady, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association. “We’re very excited about that.”
Excited is not exactly the word that comes to mind.
