OBAMA’S SPITE: PLACES VAST MAJORITY OF ARCTIC OCEAN “INDEFINITELY OFF LIMITS” TO DRILLING
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
The joint U.S.-Canada statement
issued by the White House on Tuesday permanently blocked 115 million
acres of the Arctic Ocean — including all of the Chukchi Sea and the
vast majority of the Beaufort Sea — from energy development. Said the
statement:
Trudeau are proud to launch actions ensuring a strong, sustainable and
viable Arctic economy and ecosystem … free from the future risks of
offshore oil and gas activity….
the vast majority of U.S. waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas as
indefinitely off limits to offshore oil and gas leasing, and Canada will
designate all Arctic Canadian waters as indefinitely off limits to
future offshore Arctic oil and gas leasing.
Early reactions to the statement were predictable: This is the
pronouncement of a petulant child throwing spikes in front of the Trump
administration’s bus. As Stephen Moore, one of Trump’s transition team
members, laughingly told Lou Dobbs on Fox News Tuesday night: “Trump
will repeal this on Day Two!”
Randall Luthi, president of the oil industry group National Ocean
Industries Association, said “The arrogance of the decision is
unfathomable, but unfortunately not surprising.”
Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski’s response was slightly more
measured: “President Obama has once again treated the Arctic like a
snow globe, ignoring the desires of the people who live, work, and raise
a family there. I cannot wait to work with the next administration to
reverse this decision.”
Erik Milito, of the American Petroleum Institute (API), was equally optimistic about overturning Obama’s pronouncement:
national security, destroys good-paying jobs, and could make energy
less affordable for consumers.
permanent ban, and we look forward to working with the new
administration on fulfilling the will of American voters on energy
production.
A closer look at the statement, however, reveals a much more
dangerous strategy being employed by the White House. It’s not an
executive order, but is based instead upon a law passed in 1953
regarding continental shelf development. Called the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands Act, it is an act “to provide for the jurisdictions of the
United States over the submerged lands of the outer Continental Shelf,
and to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to lease such lands for
certain purposes.” Deep within the act is the power granted to the
president to unilaterally withdraw any of those lands at any time:
from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands
of the outer Continental Shelf.
Climate-change lawyers have scoured the act for any provision
allowing for the reversal of such action and finding none are
celebrating Obama’s statement as permanent and beyond the reach of the
incoming president to do anything on Day Two or thereafter. A senior
White House official said the Obama administration is “quite confident”
that the decision could not be unwound by Trump and that efforts to do
so would require congressional action followed by years of litigation.
President Bill Clinton placed a temporary ban on developing certain
offshore areas, which was reversed in 2008 by President George W. Bush.
But that ban was temporary and this one is permanent.
Obama can be chided for an act that appears infantile, in retaliation
for Trump’s victory over Clinton last month. It can be characterized as
a last-minute rebuff to the incoming administration’s determination to
open presently off-limits areas to energy development. It can be
construed as a final bone to be tossed to environmentalists who remain
adamant in their belief that all natural resources such as oil, natural
gas, and coal must remain in the ground “where they belong.” Some have
concluded that this is Obama’s final attempt to secure a permanent and
lasting “legacy” for his administration.
What President Obama has likely done, however, is to leave a legacy
of obstruction, intending to damage America’s ability to become energy
self-sufficient. That’s the legacy that is most likely to endure.