Great news!  For our Arctic Ocean.  Recent wins give me so much hope!  
Sierra Club is part of the Alaska Coalition that helped with this effort.
Phyllis
 
 



 
ALASKA WILDERNESS LEAGUE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 30, 2014
Contact: Gwen Dobbs, Alaska Wilderness League, [log in to unmask],
202-329-9295
No 2014 Shell Arctic drilling: Shell should walk away from the Arctic
completely
WASHINGTON – Early this morning, Shell Oil Company announced that it was
backing out of drilling in the Arctic Ocean for 2014. This announcement
comes on the heels of a Ninth Circuit ruling that the Department of the
Interior violated the law when it sold offshore oil and gas leases in the
Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska, including the leases where Shell
wants to drill. The Court said the Department made arbitrary assumptions
about development that may have underestimated the potential
environmental impacts of the sale in violation of a bedrock environmental
law and sent the decision back for the agency to reconsider.
Statement by Cindy Shogan, Executive Director, Alaska Wilderness League:
“Today’s announcement that Shell is backing off drilling in the Arctic is
no surprise, given the Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling that its leases were
deemed illegal. Given these recent events, the Department of the Interior
should reevaluate its Arctic drilling efforts, including reconsidering
Chukchi lease sale 193 through a full new Environmental Impact Statement.
Shell’s 2012 program was a disaster where its mishaps culminated with its
drilling rig running aground near Kodiak Island, Alaska, at the end of
2012, demonstrating to the nation that no oil company is ready to drill
in the Arctic. Shell Oil was forced to abandon its plans to drill in the
Arctic Ocean in 2013 due to its own lack of preparedness and technical
failures, together with Alaska’s harsh and unpredictable conditions.
Shell’s proposed 2014 plans were even riskier and dirtier than 2013. As
the Wall Street Journal underscores, Shell is forced to abandon its plans
because of poor planning and lack of priorities, saying the Shell for now
has bitten off more than it can chew and states, ‘[w]e will have to wait
at least a year to see if Shell is prepared to write off all that
spending, and walk away completely.’ We can’t trust oil companies – the
Arctic is no place to experiment.”
###

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