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BLM schedules EIS public meetings; seeks ANWR lease sales comments
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
The Bureau of Land Management has scheduled meetings to gather public comments for the scoping of the supplemental environmental impact statement for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain oil and gas lease sale program. The meetings, which will be conducted remotely over Zoom, will take place on Sept. 14, 15 and 16. On each of these days there will be two sessions, one from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and the second from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Information about the meetings is available on the BLM.gov website.
The meetings form part of a 60-day public scoping period for the SEIS, which is being developed following a June 1 secretarial order, placing a hold on the oil and gas leasing program in the coastal plain. The purpose of gathering public comments is to determine the scope of issues to be addressed and to identify any significant issues, including any legal deficiencies, in the original EIS approval.
Approved in August 2020 The original EIS for the lease sale program was approved in August 2020, with then Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt signing a record of decision on Aug. 17 of that year, approving the ANWR coastal plain lease sale program. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, BLM conducted the first ANWR lease sale, with the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, Knik Arm Services and Regenerate Alaska, obtaining tracts. The lease sale program resulted from legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in December 2017 - the legislation required the Department of the Interior to conduct oil and gas lease sales for the coastal plain.
On June 1 of this year the Biden administration suspended the ANWR oil and gas leases, in anticipation of conducting a new environmental review of the leasing program - hence the development of the SEIS, which results from what BLM now claims are deficiencies in the original EIS.
A hold on permitting Political news outlet Politico has reported that the Department of the Interior has told the State of Alaska that DOI will not process permit applications for seismic surveying or related fieldwork in ANWR until the SEIS has been completed.
AIDEA has been planning to conduct seismic surveying in the coastal plain for its ANWR leases - on Aug. 4 the agency issued a notice of intent to award a contract for pre-development permitting and planning work to SAExploration Inc., with Kaktovik Iñupiat Corp., ERC Alaska and SALA LLC to be engaged as subcontractors.
Also according to Politico, BLM turned down an AIDEA application for a permit to conduct cultural resources surveys in ANWR in August. Apparently the processing of an application by Kaktovik Iñupiat Corp. for an ANWR seismic surveying permit has also been delayed.
At the time of going to press, neither BLM nor AIDEA had responded to requests by Petroleum News for comments on what Politico has reported.
Repeal of ANWR statutes? Another issue has arisen in conjunction with the budget reconciliation bill being developed by the U.S. House of Representatives - the House Natural Resources Committee has included in the bill a section for repealing the legislation from 2017 that opened the ANWR Coastal Plain for oil and gas leasing. Under the proposed bill language there would be a buyback of all ANWR leases that have been issued. The Gwich’in Native people of northern Alaska and Canada have expressed support for this legislation, given their strong objections to ANWR oil development. The Gwich’in are particularly concerned about the possible impact of oil industry activities on the Porcupine caribou herd that calves on the coastal plain and is a primary subsistence food source for the Gwich’in.
- ALAN BAILEY
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