WASHINGTON — Alaska’s oil and gas lobby wants to expedite development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an Indiana-sized piece of federal land in the Western Arctic
And, just days after the Alaska Oil and Gas Association petitioned the government to adopt a new and faster permitting process, the Bureau of Land Management obliged, announcing it intends to write a new rule for the reserve. Drilling opponents call it a corporate giveaway.
The idea is to avoid bureaucratic redundancy in what could be a busy period for the NPR-A. In a blockbuster lease sale in March, nine companies won leases on nearly 200 tracts in the petroleum reserve on the North Slope.
Rather than have each company apply to the BLM for permits for each production site, the industry is asking the agency to make a rule granting permits as long as certain conditions are met.
“Our goal here is to create greater certainty and consistency for what we view as routine development activities in the petroleum reserve but continuing along strong environmental stewardship when we do it,” said Steve Wackowski, president of the Alaska Oil & Gas Association, the trade group that proposed the process.
The BLM could do one big environmental impact study covering the basic things that make up a production site, he said.
“So a limited amount of gravel roads, development pads, drilling pads that could be looked at, studied with potential to be codified in the rules, so we could go right to BLM and get a permit to build those facilities,” Wackowski said.
The request comes at a time when permitting reform has become a national cause. Producers of fossil and renewable energy alike are pushing Congress to make some changes, because the laws that slow oil drilling also delay transmission lines and solar farms. But one person’s red tape is another’s meaningful environmental protection. While Congress mulls a compromise, the Alaska oil industry is proposing a special process for the NPR-A.
As AOGA proposes it, a company would apply for a permit in the reserve, specifying how many wells it wants, the size and locations of gravel pads and other construction. If the BLM decides it meets the definition of a production site as described in the rule, the permit would be granted within 60 days.
Wackowski points out it would only apply to BLM permits. Development near waterways would still require permits from the Corps of Engineers, he said, and the permitting process for state and North Slope Borough would be unchanged.
“So there still is a whole host of other permits and opportunities for public input with those other permits required,” he said.
Environmental advocates in the North Slope community of Nuiqsut call it a gift to industry.
Matt Jackson, Alaska senior manager at The Wilderness Society, said the approach wrongly assumes that one part of the NPR-A is the same as any other.
“We're moving development into places where it's never been before, into places with really important surface and cultural and subsistence values, and they deserve to be evaluated on their own merits, not with a cookie-cutter approach,” he said.
And, Jackson said, the umbrella permitting concept doesn’t take into account the cumulative effects of multiple projects.
“If you have one drill pad, you know, a caribou can just go around that,” he said. “If you have 10 drill pads on a line, stretching out for miles and miles with pipelines and roads and power lines, that makes a much bigger impact to the caribou moving to where they need to go.”
The BLM has kicked off a public scoping period for an environmental impact study that would precede the rule. It’s underway until July 6.
