Obama bars future oil leases in swaths of Atlantic, Arctic oceans

[Teh One Who Knocks]

FOX News and The Associated Press


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President Obama on Tuesday ordered U.S.-owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean placed "indefinitely" off-limits for future oil and gas leases, in a final fossil-fuel crackdown before he leaves office.

The move, intended to protect the area’s ecosystem, is a final push by Obama to seal his environmental legacy, and a possible way to bind the hands of his successor.

“Today, in partnership with our neighbors and allies in Canada, the United States is taking historic steps to build a strong Arctic economy, preserve a healthy Arctic ecosystem and protect our fragile Arctic waters, including designating the bulk of our Arctic water and certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean as indefinitely off limits to future oil and gas leasing,” the White House said in a statement, issued while Obama is on vacation with his family in Hawaii.

The White House announced the actions in conjunction with the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which also placed a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing in its Arctic waters, subject to periodic review.

The Atlantic waters placed off limits to new oil and gas leasing are 31 canyons stretching off the coast of New England south to Virginia.

Industry groups swiftly protested.

Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) Senior Vice President Dan Naatz said in a statement the group was “extremely disappointed in President Obama’s eleventh hour decision to shut down economic development and lock away America’s true energy potential for communities that need it most."

Although the move uses executive powers, environmental groups are hoping the ban will be difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to reverse. The billionaire has repeatedly pledged to unleash the nation’s untapped oil and natural gas reserves.

Obama used a 1953 provision that allows the president to ban offshore leases in the outer Continental Shelf permanently. The administration has been considering opening an area of the Atlantic Coast to drill, but has slowly backed away from the idea, culminating in Tuesday’s announcement. Earlier this year, the administration removed potential Atlantic lease sales from its blueprint for offshore drilling. But that ban only applies to a five-year period starting in 2017, and could be more easily reversed by Trump in his own five-year blueprint.

Trump is looking to fill his administration with nominees who opposed Obama’s environmental agenda. He has tapped Environmental Protection Agency opponent Scott Pruitt to head the agency, and has picked former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy, which Perry once vowed to eliminate. Trump has called for more offshore drilling and to make the U.S. energy self-sufficient.

Some in the industry have expressed confidence the ban will not stand under the Trump administration, noting he can simply issue a new proclamation after taking office.

"There's no such thing as a permanent ban," Erik Milito, a policy director at the American Petroleum Institute, told The Associated Press.

However, Niel Lawrence, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the AP that the result of a Trump proclamation isn’t that simple, as while the statute says a president can withdraw waters from the country's leasing plans, "it doesn't say you can put back in."

If Trump does issue an order reversing Obama's proclamation, it would be up to environmental groups or others to challenge his actions in court. If he doesn't, then it would be up to Congress to intervene.

Fourteen senators had signed a letter calling on Obama to ban offshore drilling permanently. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., had said before the announcement that he doesn’t think future administrations can undo the order without congressional approval.

[redred]

is this not a good thing ?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

It's completely symbolic and stupid. Trump can override it on his first day in office. It's an absolutely meaningless gesture.

[redred]

but is it better saving the environment and trying to move away from fossil fuels ?

[Pony]

but is it better saving the environment and trying to move away from fossil fuels ?

How exactly is it saving the environment? We're still gonna use oil and nat gas, just produced in another country that does NOT have as strict of environmental policies as we do. So it likely will be more damaging to the environment with the ban, just not in our backyard.
And we will continue to be dependent on them for our energy.

[Pony]

but is it better saving the environment and trying to move away from fossil fuels ?

It's pointless to try and move away from fossil fuels before a suitable cost effective alternative is found. I'm all for cleaning up the planet but does it need to bankrupt us?

[Muddy]

It's completely symbolic and stupid. Trump can override it on his first day in office. It's an absolutely meaningless gesture.

I read otherwise.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Erica Martinson - Alaska Dispatch News


WASHINGTON — Alaska's U.S. senators are preparing to fight off last-minute regulations that the Obama administration is rolling out at the end of the president's term, including two new environmental provisions released in recent days.

Late last week, the Environmental Protection Agency released a regulation placing limits on burning waste, as is done in some small rural Alaska communities.

Then, on Monday, the Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement released a "stream buffer" rule eight years in the making that limits large-scale mining near streams and tributaries. It will go into effect on Jan. 19, one day before Donald Trump's inauguration.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), who chairs the Senate committee that oversees the Interior Department, said she "can assure Alaskans that Congress will work to overturn this rule, and we will urge the new administration to follow the law as it considers next steps."

The so-called "stream buffer" rule could be retracted by the Senate using the Congressional Review Act, which allows legislators to retract a federal rule within 60 legislative days of its release. In the two-decade history of the law, only one rule (on workplace ergonomics) has actually been overturned by a CRA vote, even though it only requires a simple majority to pass.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, pledged Monday to "introduce a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to overturn this egregious regulation and work with my colleagues to use every tool available to turn back this regulatory assault on coal country."

The rule released Monday is a less-stringent version than one proposed in July 2015, but it is still tighter than regulations finalized (and later undone) by the George W. Bush administration in 2008.

Both Murkowski and Republican Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan argued that the federal agency did little to substantively work with state governments and other groups that wanted to provide insight on the rule.

Murkowski said the rule was "yet another example of this administration's unilateral efforts to bypass Congress and the states to impose rules that will have severe impacts on the economic well-being of our country — in this case by shutting down coal mining in several regions of the U.S., including Alaska."

"I hope that my colleagues in Congress and the incoming administration can work swiftly to kill this last gasp of bureaucratic overreach," Sullivan said Monday in response to the new Interior Department rule. "We need to reduce and modernize regulatory requirements, not create a maze of duplicative, conflicting, and industry killing regulations."

Sullivan said the rule was part of an Obama administration legacy that includes "pushing its ideologically driven eight-year war on coal."

"This rule was written behind closed doors, ignores nearly all input from state regulators, and is specifically intended to put coal miners out of work," Murkowski said.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, argue that the rule would prevent mining companies from depositing toxic mining byproducts, such as mercury and arsenic, into waterways.

The regulation revises a rule that has remained unchanged — but for a brief, retracted regulation issued in 2008 — to set new requirements for testing and monitoring streams that could be impacted by nearby mining, and sets standards for protection and restoration of those waterways.

In an interview earlier this month, Sullivan listed the stream rule as one that he hoped to overturn in the next Congress. When a reporter noted that a final rule had not been released despite years of discussion, he predicted Monday's result: "But they're gonna," he said.

On Friday, Murkowski also issued a statement decrying a new proposed — but not final — EPA plan for regulating "commercial and industrial solid waste incineration units," which are used to burn trash in remote areas where traditional methods of disposing of trash are unavailable.

"I am extremely disappointed that the EPA has chosen to push forward with a proposal that appears to do nothing to improve Alaskans' ability to dispose of waste in a safe and responsible manner," Murkowski said. "We have asked for cooperation on small remote incinerators, a uniquely Alaskan dilemma, for years and have yet to receive any assurances from the EPA that they have a workable solution," she said.

Murkowski said she would continue to review the proposal and seek "relief" for Alaskans.