Environmentalists appeal for Chukchi plan

A group of environmental organizations has appealed in federal court in Washington, D.C., against the Department of the Interior’s failure to release ConocoPhillips’ proposed exploration and oil spill contingency plans for Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. The organizations — the Alaska Wilderness League, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Resources Defense Council, Pacific Environment and the Sierra Club — had apparently made multiple requests for the plans and associated agency documents under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, and had also requested historical information relating to air quality on the outer continental shelf.

According to the organizations’ complaint, filed in court, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, agencies within Interior, have not delivered the requested plans and documents, despite a statutory timeline for a response under the terms of FOIA.

“These permitting decisions are of great importance to plaintiffs, their members, and the general public, and there is currently no process for obtaining documents pertaining to the permitting decisions except for FOIA,” the complaint says. “The prompt release of relevant permit applications, pre-decisional agency documents, agency analyses, agency communications with ConocoPhillips Company, and decision documents is critically important for meaningful public involvement.”

ConocoPhillips filed a proposed Chukchi Sea exploration plan with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in March 2012, having filed a corresponding oil spill contingency plan in February of that year.

Although by law the agencies must put these plans through a public comment process prior to approval, the agencies determine that the plans that the companies have submitted are complete before initiating the public process. In March 2013 the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement told Petroleum News that it had not yet received a fully submitted contingency plan from ConocoPhillips for future offshore Arctic exploration.

—Alan Bailey