Behind-the-scenes maneuvering orchestrated mostly by a political insider led the Obama administration to relax rules for oil development in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, according to an investigation by ProPublica, co-published with Politico.
Andrew Lundquist -- a one-time staffer for former Sen. Frank Murkowski and a former oil industry lobbyist who in 2013 became a senior vice president at ConocoPhillips -- played a big role in securing approval for a controversial road plan.
At issue is a road link for ConocoPhillips' Greater Mooses Tooth oil field unit. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Land Management approved ConocoPhillips' preferred road plan -- over objections from environmentalists who said it cut into habitat that was supposed to be protected. The BLM issued its record of decision in February. The approval allows for a permanent road transportation link between ConocoPhillips' new CD 5 field and the emerging Greater Mooses Tooth development.
The ProPublica-Politico article relies on interviews of Clinton administration Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who had championed NPR-A development as long as it was roadless.
"The problem with roads is that roads beget more roads beget more roads. A road becomes a network, becomes a spiderweb of landscape fragmentation and destruction, with little use for wildlife," he says in the article.
But Babbitt concluded that his successors at Interior failed to defend that vision, and that the approval of a permanent road to Greater Mooses Tooth was a foregone conclusion, according to the article. "It was pretty much cooked," Babbitt says in the story.
Also interviewed for the article are Lundquist's former lobbying partners, including Steven Griles, a former Bush Interior official who became enmeshed in the Jack Abramoff scandal and pleaded guilty to corruption. Native and environmental representatives who fought against road and bridge construction in the area were also interviewed, as was former Gov. Tony Knowles.
Lundquist turned down ProPublica's requests for comment, but ConocoPhillips provided a statement defending the Greater Mooses Tooth road as the safest alternative.
ConocoPhillips announced last month that it was forging ahead with Greater Mooses Tooth development, a project expected to cost $900 million. In October, the company started oil production at CD 5, which is on Native-owned land within the petroleum reserve boundaries.