Federal Obstruction

"We could move toward energy self-sufficiency by the end of the decade," said Consumer Energy Alliance President David Holt (NGP Photo) this week following release of a new study of fossil fuel potential.

The Alaska State Chamber of Commerce announced its top state and federal priorities yesterday:

State: 1) Reform Oil Tax Policy to Encourage NewOil Production, and 2) Reduce the High Cost of Energy, and 3) Increase Responsible Natural Resource Development by Improving the Efficiencies of the Permitting Process and Gaining Access to Resources.

Federal: 1) Support Oil and Gas Exploration and Development in Alaska's Federal Arctic; Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA), and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and 2) Oppose Implementation of the Emission Control Area in Alaska by the EPA, and 3) Oppose Any Further Federal Land Withdrawals in Alaska, Other Restrictive Land Management Designations, and Preemptive Actions by Regulatory Agencies

Outrage of the day: "A Chicken Lobster in Every Pot!"

Calgary Herald by Steven Ewart.  Keystone XL brings Canada into presidential debate.

ADN by Lisa Demer.  Shell Oil is now drilling wells in two Arctic seas off Alaska's northern coast.  Drilling began Wednesday afternoon in the Beaufort Sea after the end of an Inupiat whale hunt, according to Curtis Smith (NGP Photo), spokesman for Shell Alaska.  The company resumed drilling in the Chukchi Sea on Sept. 23 after a two-week suspension due to encroaching sea ice, he said.  But Shell still won't be able to drill deep enough to reach oil this year. An oil spill containment dome, an essential piece of safety gear, was damaged during testing last month in a Bellingham shipyard.

“I’m encouraged that the companies have made significant progress in advancing a project and an associated schedule for commercializing North Slope gas,” Governor Parnell (NGP Photo-R) said. “Clearly, they have fully shifted their efforts to an Alaska LNG project.”   (Note: this morning, Alaska's Commissioner of Natural Resources, Dan Sullivan {NGP Photo-l} will meet the press to discuss Governor Parnell's announcement.  Check here tomorrow morning for more updates!  -dh)

Huffington Post:  A liquefied natural gas project in Alaska could cost morethan $65 billion and would represent a mega-project of "unprecedented scale and challenge," officials behind the project told Gov. Sean Parnell.  In a letter to Parnell released by the governor's office late Wednesday, officials with TransCanada Corp. and the North Slope's three major players said good progress has been made in pursuing a project. But they said "significant environmental, regulatory, engineering and commercial work remains to reach upcoming decisions to bring North Slope gas to market."  They estimated the cost of a pipeline project could range from $45 billion to more than $65 billion, involve up to 1.7 million tons of steel and employ up to 

North Slope Borough Stakes Out Its Oil and Gas Position

Commentary By

Dave Harbour 

A clear message from the North Slope settled on participants in the 8^th Annual Oil & Gas Congress meeting in Anchorage on Wednesday (9-19-12).  North Slope Borough Mayor Charlotte Brower (NGP Photo)  joined Arctic Slope Regional Corporation President and CEO Rex Rock, Sr. in expressing appreciation for the benefits of oil and gas exploration and development – with certain conditions.

YESTERDAY MATTERED!

Yesterday, the State of Alaska sent a message to Washington D.C. that the time has come to cleanupmore than 100 contaminated oil and gas well sites in Northern Alaska when Governor Sean Parnell signed House Joint Resolution 29, the NPR-A Legacy Wells resolution this morning in Anchorage.

Introduced by Millett during the 2012 legislative session, HJR 29 calls on the federal Bureau of Land Management to honor its mission statement and clean up the drill sites. Some wells are actually leaking natural gas and the drill sites are covered with trash that can harm fish, birds, animals, marine mammals, groundwater and vegetation. 

Citing a complete failure to take the State of Alaska’s views into consideration, Governor Sean Parnell yesterday announced the State will immediately withdraw as a cooperating agency from the Memorandum of Understanding concerning the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska (NPR-A). Last month, without providing any notice to the State or any other cooperating agency, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced millions of acres in the NPR-A will be off limits to development as part of the new NPR-A land management proposal.

Feds say Chukchi Approval is part of their, "...all-of-the-above energy strategy to expand safe and responsible domestic energy production. ...   Under the permit..., Shell will be allowed to begin certain preparatory activities in the Chukchi Sea that will increase overall safety."  BSEE inspectors will be present on the Noble Discoverer to provide continuous oversight and monitoring of all approved activities. BSEE safety experts have already conducted thorough and comprehensive inspections of the drillship and Shell’s response equipment.  (ADN Story Here).

Many Current Events Are Connected In Ways That Affect Economies and Energy Investments In Arctic Alaska and Canada

Governor Urges Secretary of State Hillary Clinton To Delay Beringia Agreement

by

Dave Harbour

Current Event #1, Beringia Agreement.  We wrote about this issue on Friday (Scroll down or click here).  We have remained concerned over the weekend that our Federal government will announce what one news organization referred to as a 'low level agreement' between Russia and the United States that would, "unite protected federal lands," in the two countries.  Our concern arises from lack of transparency in the process.  What does the draft agreement say?  How would it affect future natural resource policy in the area (i.e. Red Dog Mine, Chukchi and Beaufort Exploration)?  Why does the U.S. Senate not have a copy of this draft?  Does the Senate or does it not plan to vote to ratify the agreement which is truly a treaty no matter how one parses it--not just a "low level agreement"?  Having spoken with Alaska Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell, we know of his long-held hopes of improving cooperation between the nations.  We also know from the letter sent Friday that Governor Sean Parnell (NGP Photo) is concerned about the precise direction this international treaty could take and how it might hurt job creation and other Arctic development.  We hope that Alaska's Congressional Delegation is alert to this issue and continues to be concerned about and fighting against the depth and breadth and frequency of federal overreach exhibited by this Administration.

Current Event #2.  The 17th Annual meeting of the Russian American Pacific Partnership (RAPP) will convene in Tacoma a little over a week from now, September 19-20 in Tacoma.   Among expected participants are our own Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell.  We see no indication that the formal agenda includes the Beringia issue.  However, one cannot but surmise that one of the self-imposed pressures for the Obama Administration to complete the Russian agreement this week could be its desire to announce the news next week in Tacoma.

Current Event #3, Federal Overreach.  Senator Lisa Murkowski has raised awareness of this Administration's overreaching authority in this video.  Alaska and Russia share the Arctic with their neighbors and have families that straddle the border (i.e. a term we borrow from a good friend).  Many feel strongly that the Beringia Heritage program benefits all participants.  But the Presidents of America and Russia are working quietly on this 'agreement' that neither Alaska's Governor nor Congress will likely see before it is consummated.  This may be the way business is done in Russia, but it is an alien way of conducting the public's business in America.  This flagrant end-run around Congress and Alaska's Governor is but the latest example of Federal overreach that challenges Constitutional authority.  (We have begun counting the ways the feds have overreached their authority).

Current Event #4, Arctic Jurisdiction and Sovereignty.  Three years ago, the U.S. Coast Guard and a whole flotilla of well-heeled federal agency department heads descended on Anchorage.  The flotilla wasn't here to plan Alaska's defense or assert Arctic Sovereignty.  It was the new, "Ocean Policy Task Force".  Members were here on a non-Congressionally approved or funded trip to hold a hearing on the President's executive order requiring the creation of a new "Ocean Policy".  The new regulatory regime would, in effect, establish a huge new bureaucracy to zone and control ocean use, including all of the watersheds flowing into the oceans and their adjacent lands--in effect, the whole country.  Thus, the new bureaucracy would duplicate and overlap and overlay most or many other regulatory regimes currently in existence--an extreme environmentalist's fantasy world.  We editorialized then that while our leaders were attempting to establish new controls over American commerce and human behavior, the Canadian leadership was at the same moment in the Arctic defending its jurisdiction there.  America's naive and inexperienced leaders are not keeping their eyes on the ball.  They are consumed day and night with shutting down free enterprise and resource development as their Russian and Canadian counterparts are carefully moving their Arctic chessboard pieces into place.  Our competitor-neighbors are preparing to assert control over the most promising new energy province in the world.  As Nero was said to have fiddled while Rome burned, so might it be remembered that Barack and Hillary danced and  dithered about Beringia as America lost control of its own Arctic frontier.  (See how Canada is forging ahead in its conquest of Arctic sovereignty.    ***     Canada Yahoo.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper will visit Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunivat and northern Manitoba this week for his seventh northern tour.  The annual tour has become a key part of Harper government's foreign policy — Harper uses it to assert Canadian presence in the area.  Buoyed by the region's potential natural resource riches, Russia, the United States, and the EU are all in disagreement with Canada on Arctic boundaries, and particularly about control of the Northwest Passage — a water route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  While the Harper government doesn't foresee a military threat in the Arctic , they have made it clear that 'Arctic sovereignty' would be a focus of their government.

Bureaucrats Plan to Execute the Beringia Treaty This Month Without Senate Ratification As the Congress Ignores Another Erosion of Its Constitutional Responsibility

Commentary by

Dave Harbour

According to our reliable Wikipedia source, "A treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations.  A treaty may also be known as an international  agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms. Regardless of terminology, all of these forms of agreements are, under international law, equally considered treaties and the rules are the same."   Properly following the treaty process is part of America's adherence to the "rule of law".

The United States Park Service, an arm of Secretary Ken Salazar's Department of Interior (DOI), is being employed -- along with Secretary Hillary Clinton's State Department -- to create additional use restrictions in the Arctic via an illegal international treaty that Russian and Obama Administration officials may approve as soon as this month.  

Alaska's Lieutenant Governor, Mead Treadwell, and various non-profits have attended Bringia meetings, so the idea of the U.S. and Russia doing something to honor their historical and geographical relationship in the ancient "Asia-Alaska Land Bridge" area is not new.  And, we are aware that Treadwell has also kept a wary eye on the whole proceeding, alert to Alaska and U.S. interests.  But, to date, the public has not seen a copy of a pending agreement and the U.S. Senate is not preparing for ratification--even though "...the issue is a priority at the highest levels."   

Our reliable source again notes that, "In the US, the treaty power is a coordinated effort between the Executive branch and the Senate. The President may form and negotiate a treaty, but the treaty must be advised and consented to by a two-thirds vote in the Senate."   An administration that does not observe the rule of law applying to treaty ratification acts illegally and debases America's rule of law.

We have documented herein how DOI and sister agencies have expertly executed President Obama's restrictive environmental agenda of closing public lands to multiple use, closing natural resource access to public lands, blocking access to lawfully issued natural resource leases using regulatory, legal and political obstructionist techniques.  

The Beringia agreement -- while begun under earlier Administrations -- is yet another layer of regulatory malaise this Administration will employ to smother the economic and job recovery of America.  It will violate our treaty ratification process and set America up via Park Service and/or State Department rules to enforce American compliance while the Russians may or may not be willing now and in the future to help enforce treaty provisions on their side of the fence.   It will very comfortably augment the current Administration's effort to impose further restrictions on ANWR and NPR-A, to establish critical habitat for species whose numbers are growing and to create a new omnibus zoning plan for restricting access to and use of oceans surrounding America--and the watersheads feeding the oceans. 

We wonder just what blocked access to natural resources, ocean transport limitations, or emasculated national defense capabilities to which this Administration might be committing America.  It's all in the hands of these unelected bureaucrats, guided by Salazar and Clinton at Obama's direction with advice and consent -- we can be confident -- from a few, well connected, special interest, environmental allies which together make up the Government-Enviroextremist Cabal.

Shame on Congress in general and the Senate leadership in particular for letting this matter move so far ahead, so far under their radar!  Where are the press conferences?  Where in the Congressional Record is news or the language of this proposed treaty?  Where is a well publicized hearing schedule to attract comment on the treaty language?  Could this agreement affect existing jobs and/or operations (i.e. Red Dog mine)?  As the Administration seeks to block access through NPR-A for a Chukchi and/or Beaufort Sea oil pipeline is it now planning to block the ability to move any discovered oil by ocean transport?  Why didn't the State Department seek the State of Alaska's formal advice and consent?

A saving grace may be in the form of a rumor we hear that Russian governmental and Yupik leaders along with some Alaska Natives, Alaska's state government and others are 'pushing back' on the Beringia treaty.  But with or without Congressional approval or budgetary support, Secretary Salazar's Park Service and Secretary Clinton's State Department are spending agency time and money trying to accomplish the Beringia goal before the end of this month, before the national elections in November.

We hope wiser minds will mobilize and stop this newest Administration assault on the State of Alaska, on national security and sovereignty, on the U.S. economy, on the freedom of Americans, on the treaty ratification process and on the reputation of  America's "rule of law".

ADN by Lisa Demer.  A Norwegian oil and gas company is delaying plans to explore for oil offshore in the Alaska Arctic until at least 2015 because of concerns about regulatory challenges faced by rival and sometimes partner Shell Oil Co., according to a company spokesman.  The decision by Statoil came in August, before federal regulators decided to allow Shell to drill in the Chukchi Sea, but that development doesn't change things, said Jim Schwartz, a Houston-based spokesman for Statoil.  "The bottom line is, in light of the significant uncertainty regarding Alaska offshore exploration, we've decided to take what we believe is a prudent step of observing the outcome of Shell's efforts before finalizing our own exploration decision time frame," Schwartz said.