Chukchi Sea Planning Area Oil and
Gas Lease Sale 193

The Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) released a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Chukchi Sea Oil and Gas Lease Sale 193, held in February 2008, on August 18, 2011. The Final SEIS provides additional environmental analysis that supplements the review originally completed as part of the planning for Lease Sale 193.Click here to read more.

PACIFIC ENVIRONMENT ISSUES PRESS STATEMENT ON BOEMRE'S FINAL SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR LEASE SALE 193

For Immediate Release - August 18, 2011

Contact:

Carole Holley, Alaska Program Co-Director
cholley@pacificenvironment.org
907-306-1180

Carole Holley, Alaska Program Co-Director of Pacific Environment:

"Today's decision indicates that the Obama Administration and BOEMRE have determined that logic and reason are no longer the business of our elected leaders. Our government instead has chosen to ignore its own experts and the American public in making this clearly politically-expedient decision. The National Marine Fisheries Service commented that missing information is essential to determining the right course for the agency in the Chukchi Sea. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) also recently stated that missing information is a 'major constraint to a defensible science framework for critical Arctic decision-making.'And yet, President Obama and BOEMRE have concluded that not a single piece of essential missing information is needed to decide to drill in the remote and pristine Chukchi Sea. Over a quarter million American citizens wrote the Administration, urging to slow down this freight train before a catastrophic wreck destroys not only America's Arctic ecosystems but also the people and the culture that depend on them. President Obama and Secretary Salazar still have time to demonstrate to the American public and the world, that there is integrity in D.C. and that Alaska's Arctic is not just for sale to the highest bidder at any cost, especially one [Shell Oil] that continues to wreck environments in the UK's North Sea and the Niger Delta."