DNR issues new info for fall lease sales

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

What’s changed since the Alaska Department of Natural Resources issued best interest findings for the upcoming Alaska North Slope and Beaufort Sea areawide lease sales?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for polar bears in the Beaufort Sea and North Slope areawide sale areas.

An Alaska Superior Court judge ruled in favor of REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands) that preparation of a single BIF violates the Alaska Constitution.

And the Deepwater Horizon blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, taking 11 lives, spilling oil into the Gulf and generating a number of investigations and inquiries — not all of which are complete — by federal and state governments.

Best interest findings are issued for 10 years; each year before a sale is held the state solicits substantial new information. The most recent BIF for the Beaufort Sea sale area was issued in 2009; the most recent North Slope BIF in 2008.

In a July 14 decision, DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan said the department received substantial new information which justified supplementing the findings for the sales.

DNR received comments from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, from The Wilderness Society and collectively from the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands or REDOIL, Sierra Club, Natural Resource Defense Council, Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Alaska Wilderness League.

Supplements to the findings include notification that a single BIF was found unconstitutional in Alaska Superior Court in February. DNR said it “will comply with the court’s decision” in the case brought by REDOIL “unless modified by the Alaska Supreme Court.”

Lessees are also advised of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designation of critical habitat for polar bears, and of ongoing review and evaluation by the State of Alaska of information from the Deepwater Horizon investigations and the Alaska Risk Assessment reports.

The commissioner said in the decision that the state will consider information from the Oil Spill Commission final report to the president, dated Jan. 11, on the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is reviewing and assessing the adequacy of relevant statutes and regulations following the Deepwater Horizon, and is awaiting completion of a joint investigative report by the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard. AOGCC has public hearings scheduled for Sept. 15.

“As this process develops, new or modified mitigation measures, lessee advisories, or other statutory or regulatory requirements addressing issues such as safety, environmental safeguards, risk management, and reporting standards may be forthcoming,” the lessee advisory says.