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State scolds feds on Arctic EIS Department of Natural Resources releases recent comments to National Marine Fisheries Service, and two other federal agencies Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
With a rapid-fire series of letters, state officials are making a broad push to paint the federal government as standing in the way of resource development in Alaska.
The state sent letters on three consecutive business days to the National Marine Fisheries Service concerning oil and gas development, the Environmental Protection Agency concerning the Bristol Bay Watershed and the supervisor of the Tongass National Forest.
In the first of those letters, sent June 27, Natural Resources Deputy Commissioner Ed Fogels criticized the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, for excluding the state from its ongoing Environmental Impact Statement for Arctic oil and gas activities.
As such, the state believes the feds violated the National Environment Policy Act.
“The lead federal agency is required to invite the participation of affected Federal, State, and local agencies, any affected Indian tribe, the proponent of the action, and other interested persons,” he wrote, citing federal law. “The State of Alaska has not sufficiently been consulted, nor invited to participate in this NEPA process. This is especially troubling since the SDEIS includes waters under the jurisdiction of the State of Alaska.”
Without input from the state, the supplemental draft EIS failed to “suitably assess” the potential exploration activity on the 166 active leases in state-owned waters, Fogels wrote.
The current EIS began as a 2006 effort by the NMFS and the now-defunct U.S. Minerals Management Service to assess the potential impacts of numerous seismic campaigns expected in the Arctic as a consequence of increased interest in the region. The effort expanded to cover the cumulative impacts of multiple seismic and drilling programs, a controversial approach seeing as how the activities being considered were hypothetical.
‘Frustrating’ process The state continues to attack the EIS on that ground, as well as on other considerations.
A draft EIS released in December 2011 caused industry concern by limiting Arctic exploration two programs each year in the Beaufort Sea and two each year in the Chukchi Sea. A supplemental draft EIS in March 2013 allowed for twice as much exploration, but proposed certain restrictions. “It is frustrating that NMFS is proposing new restrictions in the form of temporal/spatial closures in state-owned waters of the Beaufort Sea without having consulted the State prior to making proposed assertions,” Fogels wrote.
The supplemental draft EIS also contradicts the goal of the interagency working group that President Obama established by executive order in July 2011 to coordinate energy permitting and development in Alaska among federal agencies, according to Fogels.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of the NMFS, acknowledged the letter, but offered no immediate rebuttal, saying, “We will consider all public comments in the development of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, and include a mechanism for commenters to track how we dealt with their comments. The Final Environmental Impact Statement is targeted for release in Spring 2014.”
The final EIS will certainly contain comments from other interested parties, including groups concerned about resource development in the Arctic. By releasing its comments early, in conjunction with letters to other federal agencies, the Parnell administration is drawing attention to its ongoing battle against what it sees as federal overreach in Alaska.
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