Bad to the Last Drop (of Oil)
Congress’s grand push for tax reform has an unlikely stowaway: a provision that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. In the budget resolution driving the current tax reform agenda, Senate leadership included an utterly irrelevant, underhanded provision to secure support from Alaska’s senior senator, Lisa Murkowski. The language allows the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources — chaired by Senator Murkowski — to write a bill that would authorize drilling on the ecologically irreplaceable Coastal Plain in the Arctic Refuge. Legislation written in this manner can bypass a filibuster in the Senate because it utilizes special federal budget rules intended only for fiscal policies that are supposed to reduce the budget deficit.
The Arctic Refuge is the crown jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System, and the Coastal Plain is the biological heart of this world class preserve. This vital expanse of tundra, lakes, streams and wetlands provide vital nesting habitat for hundreds of species of migratory birds from all 50 states and six continents; the most important onshore denning habitat for threatened polar bears in the United States; spawning streams for Dolly Varden and other valued fish species; and room to roam for caribou, brown bears, wolves, muskoxen, Dall sheep, Arctic foxes and many other wildlife species.
Sacrificing a National Treasure
It is abominable to tuck a provision to desecrate a national treasure into a completely unrelated budget bill that is focused on tax reform. Two out of three Americans support protecting the Arctic Refuge. Adding such a high-profile, divisive provision to an unrelated budget bill has nothing to do with budget numbers or tax reform and has everything to do with circumventing full and fair debate. The Arctic Refuge drilling provision will only make an already complex tax reform process even more complicated.
How Much Oil is Even There?
Defenders of Wildlife obtained documents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) through a Freedom of Information Act request that indicate that there may not be viable oil reserves beneath the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
· To comply with Secretary Zinke’s mandate under Secretarial Order 3352, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) applied for and received a permit from FWS to conduct field research in the Arctic Refuge to update current assessments of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources beneath the Coastal Plain (1002 Area) (Batch 2, Document 35).
· In the rationale for their permit application, USGS explained that their previous 1998 minerals assessment “concluded that the richest petroleum source rock (Triassic Shublik Formation) and the best quality petroleum reservoir rocks (Mississipian through Triassic sandstone formations) on the Alaska North Slope are absent beneath most of the 1002 Area…” (Batch 2 Document 19).
· USGS’s field research, which occurred this summer, included collection of rock samples at eleven sites on the Coastal Plain and “specifically focused on evaluating key geological uncertainties” regarding the petroleum potential of the area. “A specific outcome of our proposed work in the Arctic Refuge is to determine whether the oil seeps and stains on the coastal plain reveal any geochemical evidence of being derived from the Shublik Formation; if not, that would provide evidence supporting our 1998 conclusion that the Shublik Formation is not present beneath the coastal plan, which was based mainly on seismic interpretation” (Batch 2 Document 19).
· USGS intends to conduct additional research in the vicinity of the Coastal Plain in 2018 and produce results from their study late next year (Batch 2, Document 19; Batch 2, Document 190).
Just last week a former oil industry geologist acknowledged that the Coastal Plain “does not have promising oil-bearing rock formations ” and that there are better bets for developing petroleum resources elsewhere. If that’s the case, why would Congress risk even exploring for oil in Arctic Refuge given the damage it could cause?
Oil development on the Coastal Plain would irreparably damage this vital ecosystem. The wilderness and habitat values would be forever destroyed by an industrial complex, replete with oil spills, leaks and pollution. Pipelines, drill rigs, buildings and other infrastructure accompanied by the noise of industrial development would threaten iconic wildlife and sensitive species that call the refuge home.
A Budget Scam
The Arctic Refuge drilling provision in the budget is about changing policy, not raising revenue. The president’s budget proposal suggests that selling oil and gas leases in the Arctic Refuge would raise $1.8 billion over ten years. Not only is this number a drop in the bucket when it comes to balancing the budget, but is also based on false assumptions. A recent economic analysis by the Center for American Progress found that Arctic Refuge drilling would only raise $37.5 million for the U.S. Treasury, at most, in the first decade.
In fact, oil leasing in the refuge might only produce a paltry $7.5 million, assuming Alaska successfully sues to claim 90 percent of leasing revenues available under applicable law. The current budget resolution in the Senate would increase the federal debt by $1.5 trillion — meaning that the sale of Arctic refuge leases and royalties would recoup a fraction of one percent of the projected deficit in the “best case” scenario.
The Arctic Refuge may be far away from Washington, D.C., but the impacts of policy created inside the beltway would put polar bears, caribou, musk oxen, migratory birds and many other species that depend on the Coastal Plain at risk, and could affect ecosystems throughout the United States. And as the Arctic Refuge goes, so go public lands throughout the country. If we cannot protect the crown jewel wildlife refuge, America’s Serengeti, from oil drilling, then public lands everywhere will be vulnerable to development. Stopping this terrible, harebrained scheme to drill in the Arctic Refuge will prevent Congress from setting a horrible precedent that would only feed into current attacks on our precious natural resources.
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