Anti energy left tries to thwart Shell Alaska drilling

Houston Chronicle:
Environmentalists have opened a new front in their campaign to block Shell’s planned drilling in Arctic waters near Alaska, by challenging the government’s decision to issue the company essential air pollution permits for some of the work.
At issue are Clean Air Act permits the Environmental Protection Agency issued last month for Shell Oil Co.’s Kulluk drillship and support vessels, which the firm plans to use while working on exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas starting next summer.
Ten Alaskan and environmental groups appealed those permits before the EPA’s administrative Environmental Appeals Board on Monday. That builds on a similar appeal of the Clean Air Act permits issued for Shell’s Noble Discoverer that was filed in October.
The latest challenge was mounted by Earthjustice, representing another nine groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Alaska Wilderness League.
The group highlights the risks associated with drilling for oil — and cleaning up any spills — in slushy, remote Arctic waters.
“Drilling for oil in the remote and often dangerous waters of the Arctic Ocean, where 20 foot swells and hurricane force winds accompany months-long winter darkness, is being approved despite an acknowledged lack of basic science and preparedness,” the coalition said in a statement. “Were drilling to result in an oil spill, cleanup could be nearly impossible.”
Shell is proposing to drill four wells in the Beaufort Sea and six in the nearby Chukchi Sea over the next two years, beginning when ice clears next summer.
... 
The anti energy left is determined to drive up the cost of drilling anyway they can and they use environmental laws as a tool for doing that.  In the process they become the useful idiots of hostile regimes who are selling oil to us and using the money to finance anti American activities.  They have no viable alternative energy policies and their attempts to create alternatives have been a financial fiasco.

They should have their challenges thrown out and be required to pay Shell's litigation cost.

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