This just smells exceedingly bad.
The Interior Department is moving quickly on a land swap that would involve giving 100,000 acres of the Yukon Flats Wildlife Refuge to a private company, Doyon, Ltd, for other land of unappraised value. Naturally for Bushco, the refuge land is highly valuable commercially.
It appears to be another Buschco gift to industry.
Washington, DC — A massive land-for-oil swap in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge aims to open much of eastern Alaska up to petroleum development, according to comments filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The land exchange is moving quickly despite the absence of any land appraisals for the more than half-million acres involved. One preliminary estimate puts potential undiscovered Yukon oil resources at one-third the size of Alaska’s largest North Slope field.
Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) is considered one of the greatest waterfowl breeding grounds in North America. The 11 million acre refuge (more than twice the size of Massachusetts) is located on the eastern side of the state along the Canadian border and is bisected by the Yukon River.
Under the agreement, the Interior Department would give up 110,000 acres of land and subsurface rights and subsurface rights for another 100,000 acres of the Yukon Flats NWR to a Native Corporation called Doyon, Ltd. In return, Interior would receive 150,000 acres of Doyon refuge in-holdings and the Doyon would waive rights to 53,000 more acres. Then, depending upon the oil and gas developed by Doyon and its value, Interior could get additional lands and a small royalty.
Checking on that DEIS, I couldn’t even get it to come up. Hmm.
But apparently there’s good reason to move quickly and without a proper appraisal.
The transaction is classified as “an equal value exchange” even though no appraisals have been conducted. Waiting for appraisals, however, would delay the deal until the next administration. In addition to not knowing the relative land values, Interior would earn only miniscule royalties on recovered oil and gas from land that the federal government now owns.
A gift indeed.
