Author(s)
Marilyn Heiman
Author(s) Description
Director of the Pew Environment Group's U.S. Arctic Program
Marilyn Heiman responds to Amy Harder's blog How Could High Oil Prices Shape 2012? on NationalJournal.com.
Oil prices will be at the center of our nation’s energy debate in 2012. Some will use rising prices as an opening to push for drilling in sensitive areas like the Arctic Ocean, even though the challenges of oil exploration in such a harsh, remote, and fragile place are unprecedented.
The Arctic is one of the most difficult places on Earth to mount a rescue operation or spill response. It is extremely isolated, with no major roads, ports, or airports. The nearest Coast Guard base is more than 1,000 miles away. There is no proven technology to clean up oil in broken ice. Hurricane-force winds, sub-zero temperatures, high seas, shifting sea ice, and long periods of fog and darkness are the norm and could shut down response altogether.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, plus subsequent spills off the coasts of Nigeria, Brazil, New Zealand, Scotland, and Norway, have reinforced concerns about safety and response in temperate waters, let alone Arctic waters.
Despite all of these factors, the Obama Administration is on the brink of approving plans to drill the first exploration wells in more than 20 years in the Chukchi Sea, one of the most biologically rich areas of the Arctic Ocean. This would also include the first well in the adjacent Beaufort Sea since the 2010 Gulf of Mexico tragedy. These seas are home to national treasures like walrus, polar bears, bowhead whales, and other marine mammals found nowhere else in the United States.
But there is still time to correct course. President Obama must show responsible leadership by deferring new offshore exploration in these risky waters until we fully understand the effects of drilling there.
