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Elton: offshore will be ‘balanced’ New director of Alaska affairs stays abstract in first Alaska speech, promises combination of traditional, new sources of energy Eric Lidji Petroleum News
The federal government will balance many viewpoints as it decides how to manage offshore resources, but the final plan will most likely not seem perfect to any particular group, according to the new director of Alaska affairs for the Department of the Interior.
“I suspect that when a plan is presented and we begin to move forward on it, I suspect that everybody who is looking through a different prism will say, ‘You know, that plan is not perfect,’” Kim Elton told the Resource Development Council on April 16. Until his appointment to the Interior post in March Elton represented Juneau in the Alaska Senate.
But Elton said he feels “very, very comfortable” there will ultimately be a plan that “recognizes the value of the oil and gas resources that this state has,” and will be a plan both the state and industry “can rely on” in making future business and policy decisions.
The comments echo ones made by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar at a hearing on April 14, where the department heard testimony from Alaskans about offshore development.
Elton shied away from making concrete policy statements, noting that the new department had been in office less than 80 days and remained less than fully staffed.
“Invite me back in six months and maybe I can tell you or give you some kind of glimpse of how things are shaping up,” Elton said.
Salazar to return this summer The U.S. Department of the Interior manages more than half of the land in Alaska, including resource-rich areas like the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and 15 distinct regions of the Outer Continental Shelf.
“OCS is the reason we came here,” Elton said, referring to the hearing. “OCS is a big part of what the department is going to have to grapple with in the next few months.”
Elton echoed statements made in recent months by Salazar that any new energy policy would include oil and gas production as well as renewable and alternative sources of energy. Offshore development will be a part of the plan as well, Elton said. The question before the department is “where that production will occur and how it will occur.”
“Those are still decisions to be made,” he said. “And I’m comfortable with the fact that when those decisions are made they are going to be made in a balanced way.”
Elton said Salazar plans to return to Alaska this summer and will most likely visit communities and oil development on the North Slope. During the current visit, Salazar chose to visit Dillingham, a Bristol Bay community near proposed offshore development.
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