• Energy

Oil and Gas Lease Sales Go On Even Though There Are Few Takers and Lots of Litigation

• drilling
• Gulf of Mexico
• oil and gas

Between coronavirus economic meltdown and the excess oil supply thanks to the Russia and Saudi Arabia price war, bidding on the latest oil and gas leases for sale in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday was lower than any sale since 1993 for the highly productive central Gulf, according to the Associated Press.

Why This Matters: Cheap sales like this are good for the industry but they are selling our national shared assets for pennies on the dollar.

• Energy

Trump Administration Overrules Engineers on Drilling Safety In Rule Rollbacks

• Deep Water Horizon
• drilling
• oil and gas
• oil spill
• safety rules

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that at the direction of the Trump Administration it purged from the administrative record the written objections of its own engineers to the loosening of certain safety rules and procedures governing offshore drilling equipment.   The Journal found that internal deliberations with experts on the staff in which the experts expressed their concern about the safety of the looser rules are not reflected in the final decision memos issued by agency political appointees with close ties to the oil and gas industry.

• Land

Trump Administration Takes Aim at the Bureau of Land Management

• Bureau of Land Management
• drilling
• mining
• Monuments
• oil and gas

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is a small federal agency but it manages 250 million acres of land around the country, much of it in the West, and recently the Trump Administration announced that it wants to move most of its employees from Washington, D.C. to Colorado and other Western states as part of […]

• Land

Trump Administration Full Speed Ahead on Drilling and Mining In Alaska

• ANWR
• drilling
• mining
• Native Alaskan Tribes
• Pebble Mine

The Trump Administration in recent days has moved to quickly walk back protections for pristine areas of Alaska, advancing projects to develop the Pebble Mine that threatens Bristol Bay and its billion-dollar salmon fishery and also oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) over the strenuous objections of Alaska native tribes and their corporations, local communities, fishers, tourism businesses, and environmental groups.  

• Ocean

Norway to End Arctic Oil and Gas Drilling

• Arctic Ocean
• climate change
• drilling
• Norway
• oil and gas
• renewables

In a decision that caught oil and gas industry executives by surprise, the largest governing party in Norway announced it is withdrawing its support for fossil fuel exploration in the Arctic ocean near the sensitive Lofoten Islands, thereby effectively putting them off limits for development. According to Bloomberg, State-controlled Equinor ASA, the biggest Norwegian oil producer, have said that gaining access to Lofoten is key if the country wants to maintain fuel production — experts had estimated that there are 1 billion to 3 billion barrels of oil in the waters off the Lofoten archipelago.  

• Energy

Judge Tosses Trump Plan To Drill Offshore In Alaska

• #saveourcoasts
• Alaska
• drilling
• ocean
• offshore
• oil and gas

A federal judge in Alaska dealt a major blow late Friday to the Trump Administration’s plan to allow drilling for oil and gas in the ocean waters off the North Slope of Alaska and in deep-sea canyons in the Atlantic Ocean.  President Obama used his statutory authority under the law governing ocean oil and gas drilling to “withdraw” these areas from ANY subsequent plan to lease them out, but three months after taking office, President Trump “revoked” the Obama decision. 

• Climate Change

A Judge in Wyoming Shuts Down Trump Oil and Gas Drilling Plan

• Banking on Climate Change
• climate change
• drilling
• federal judge
• leasing
• oil and gas
• Wyoming

A federal judge late Tuesday halted the Trump Administration’s oil and gas drilling plans on 300,000 acres of federal lands in Wyoming because of the Administration’s failure to take climate change into account in its review of the environmental impacts of drilling, according to The Washington Post.

• Ocean

Right Whales Are The Right Whale to Save – Just Ask Vineyard Wind

• drilling
• endangered species
• offshore wind
• oil and gas
• right whale
• seismic
• Vineyard Wind
• whale

There are fewer than 415 North Atlantic Right Whales remaining with only 100 females of breeding age left in the population. This is one of the most endangered species on the planet, thanks to man-made threats like ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. According to the U.S. Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Beth Allgood, “There may be only five years remaining to save these whales. This is one of the most pressing conservation challenges of our time.”

• Ocean

Environmental Groups Seek To Block Seismic Testing in the Atlantic

• beaked whales
• dolphins
• drilling
• endangered
• Georgia
• Gulf of Mexico
• marine mammals
• North Atlantic Right Whale
• Oceana
• oil and gas
• seismic
• South Carolina
• whale
• whales

As part of their challenge to bar the government from drilling for oil and gas off the southeastern coast, a coalition of environmental groups asked a federal judge in South Carolina to force the government to suspend seismic airgun blast testing, which are used to deposits of oil and gas under the sea floor, until the case can be fully heard in court.  They are challenging the government’s permits, which would allow for the drilling to harm and even possibly kill of a number of marine mammals, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, which is on the verge of extinction. 

• Water

Drill Baby Drill In the Everglades

• drilling
• Everglades
• Florida
• oil and gas
• oil spill

The Florida Everglades may soon be the site of new oil and gas drilling operations.  A Miami real estate developer has, after a four-year legal battle, received a permit to drill an exploratory oil well in the Everglades, just west of populous Broward County suburbs.

• Land

Protests Against Drilling in ANWR Dominate Public Meeting

• Alaksa
• ANWR
• Arctic
• drilling
• environmental impact
• oil and gas
• wildlife

Last week, the Interior Department held a public meeting in Fairbanks to hear their comments and concerns about plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.  The agency brought scientists who were there to explain the environmental impact of the project and then take testimony from members of the public. 

• Ocean

50 years after Santa Barbara oil spill, the call remains: ‘Get oil out’

• anniversary
• California
• drilling
• Green New Deal
• oil spill
• Santa Barbara

Fifty years after a California oil spill launched the modern environmental movement, we may finally be moving beyond the age of oil, and none too soon.