Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Editorial:  

Offshore oil and gas leasing near Alaska might continue — someday— which
is the best that can be said about the Interior Department’s decision on
the matter Wednesday.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled all lease sales previously
planned for the next two years in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, saying
the environmental risks need more study.

Supporters of the delay try to use a 2009 federal court order as cover
for Salazar’s decision. But the court ruling provides about as much cover
as one could find today on the frozen surface of the Arctic waters in
question — scant.

The court decision did order the department to conduct a more thorough
environmental analysis of proposed leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi
seas. But the court’s decision focused on what was primarily a procedural
flaw in the previous administration’s approach to the analysis. On every
substantive environmental issue in the case, the court ruled in favor of
the government’s decision to conduct a leasing program.

The court agreed only that the Interior Department erred when it limited
its “environmental sensitivity” analysis to relatively near-shore regions
rather than the entire outer continental shelf area proposed for leasing.
“The law plainly requires that Interior examine and compare the
environmental sensitivity of different areas of the OCS,” the court
stated. This was a technical flaw easily addressed by completing the
review.

The Interior Department completed the review and upheld existing leases.
But it essentially decided to take another two years to complete the
analysis for any additional leases. The justification is thin. Contrary
to the assertions of those who oppose leasing, the court did not rule
that the department lacked the biological information it needed to judge
the risks of offshore leasing. In fact, the court specifically dismissed
such assertions. “This argument is wholly without merit,” it said in its
unanimous ruling.

Some have cast Salazar’s decision as a compromise because he did not
cancel existing leases in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, as if he had
that unilateral authority in the first place. Canceling the leases would
require the federal government to cut refund checks to oil companies for
the billions they have spent on rights to drill. That would require a
congressional appropriation, just as was approved in 1990 when Congress
canceled leases in the North Aleutian basin in reaction to the Exxon
Valdez oil spill.

And upon what would the secretary have based a cancellation
recommendation, anyway — an argument that a federal court has already
declared to be “wholly without merit?” He rightly chose not to walk out
on that thin ice.
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