The Interior Department on Wednesday asked for public comment about drilling in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s coast, part of the agency’s offshore oil and gas leasing proposal announced in January.
The offshore drilling plan would open nearly all federal waters to drilling, including sales off the Alaska coast.
The Trump plan has received bipartisan criticism, with almost all coastal governors expressing opposition to allowing drilling off their shores, for fear of spills and harm to tourism.
But local politicians support drilling off Alaska’s coast. The state is heavily dependent on oil and gas revenue to support its budget.
Interior’s proposal to drill in the Beaufort Sea asks companies to nominate areas where they might bid in a 2019 sale, and also mention areas too environmentally sensitive to drill.
The Beaufort Sea area where companies can express interest spans 65 million acres.
The proposal will appear in Friday’s Federal Register, starting a 30-day comment period ending April 30.
Environmental groups accused the Interior Department on Wednesday of acting prematurely in announcing the proposal, noting the agency has not finalized the 2019-2024 offshore leasing plan.
“Planning for a Beaufort lease sale this early in the process of crafting Trump’s five-year plan is a clear sign that the decision to include the Arctic has already been made,” said a coalition of environmental groups, including the Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and others. “This Beaufort sale is about giving a win to the Alaska delegation by starting the process to fast-track getting leases into the hands of the oil industry without full, fair and open debate.”
Interior sought to downplay those concerns in its proposal, writing that the request for industry interest is “not a prejudgment by the secretary concerning any area that may be made available for leasing under the 2019-2024 national program.”
Former President Barack Obama had considered opening portions of the Arctic ocean to oil and gas exploration, but major pushback convinced his administration to reverse course. Obama in his last days in office shielded from drilling more than 100 million offshore acres along the Arctic and eastern seaboards.
The industry may not be interested in offshore drilling, critics say, because it is expensive, more risky, and overshadowed by easier-to-access onshore fracking opportunities from the shale boom.
How strongly companies consider risk offshore will depend on the price of oil, experts say. Oil prices have risen from a low of below $30 in early 2016 to more than $60 per barrel.
