USA: Reaction to Beaufort Sea Exploration

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a member of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling reacted to the recent approval by the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) in an Op-Ed in The New York Times on August 17 saying, “The administration should put on the brakes. This is a reckless gamble we cannot afford. We can’t prevent an Arctic blowout any more than we can avert disaster in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea. We don’t have the infrastructure, the knowledge or the experience to cope with one if it occurs.”

USA: Conditional Approval for Beufort Sea Exploration

On August 4, the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) issued conditional approval for a revised Exploration Plan submitted by Shell Offshore Inc. to drill up to four shallow water exploration wells in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea beginning in July 2012. Conditional approval follows the bureau’s completion of a site-specific Environmental Assessment to examine the potential environmental impacts of the plan and the “Finding of No Significant Impact” dated August 3. Among the conditions of final approval is the requirement that Shell obtain all necessary permits from other agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

Timeline and full documentation of the BOEMRE process