Alaska News

Salazar: Final decision on Shell's Alaska project by Aug. 15

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar revealed to the New York Times that his department would make a final decision on whether to issue drilling permits (to Shell) by Aug. 15 of this year.

On a trip to New York City, Salazar, and the director of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis, talked to the press and answered questions about department decisions over the last few years.

Of Shell's offshore oil drilling plans in Northern Alaska, the Times reports:

Meanwhile, Environmental and activist groups like Greenpeace and Yes Labs have been ramping up their awareness campaigns in an effort to negatively influence Shell's prospects in the Arctic.

Just this week the Greenpeace-Yes Labs collaboration that created "Let's Go Arctic," a mock Shell crowdsourcing campaign, spread across social media sites. As well, the hacker group Anonymous leaked sensitive information of five major Arctic-involved oil and gas companies onto the web in solidarity of Greenpeace's stance.

On Wednesday morning, July 18, POLITICO's Morning Energy blog noted that on Tuesday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska expressed pessimism about whether Shell will have enough time remaining this summer to conduct exploratory drilling. She cited the wait for final permits and interference from sea ice, which this year has been above normal in thickness and extent and has already delayed Shell's planned exploration this summer.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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