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david bernhardt
Turns Out That the Oil Industry Wasn't Interested in the Arctic Refuge After All
The Trump administration’s Arctic Refuge oil lease auction was a total bust.
Jan 15, 2021
On the afternoon of Wednesday, January 6--as many Americans were transfixed by the violent insurrectionists laying siege to the US Capitol--the Department of the Interior was undertaking what some conservationists have likened to another kind of plunder: the first ever oil and gas lease sale in one of North America's most iconic wilderness landscapes.
For more than 40 years, environmentalists and Republicans in Congress have battled over the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain, a 1.6 million-acre stretch of fragile tundra at the edge of the Arctic sea. In 2017, with a two-page provision tucked into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Donald Trump achieved what no other Republican president had been able to: opening up the refuge to oil and gas exploration and development. The lease sale was, in a way, the culmination of one of the defining environmental struggles of the last half-century.
Not surprisingly, the Trump administration considered Arctic Refuge drilling among its biggest accomplishments, as Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told the Conservative Political Action Conference last year. The Alaska Congressional delegation viewed it as a major triumph. Industry boosters and the Congressional Budget Office claimed that the lease sales--the Tax Act requires two over the course of the next decade--would be a windfall for the US Treasury and the state of Alaska and that it would help to replenish the dwindling life-blood of the Trans Alaska Pipeline.
But, ultimately, the first lease sale was a flop. Only half of the parcels attracted a bid, many of them at bare minimum prices. The Alaska Wilderness League called the lease auction an "epic failure."
Even before last Wednesday's sale, there were signs that this idea was largely a fantasy. In 2019 British Petroleum sold off all of its assets on the North Slope, including the closely guarded results of the single test well drilled on refuge lands, in what many viewed as a sign of the inevitable long-term decline of Alaska's oil and gas industry. Meanwhile, more than a dozen banks in the US, Canada, and Europe pledged not to finance development projects in the Arctic. The rush to lease in the refuge was unfolding without a very clear understanding of the coastal plain's resource potential, making any investment that much more risky. To top it all off, Joe Biden's presidential election victory ensured that the incoming administration would do everything in its power to protect the region.
That's where things stood when DOI's Deputy Secretary Kate MacGregor, who had traveled to Anchorage for the lease sale, approached the lectern and began opening bids. "It is my honor to preside over this momentous occasion," she said before thanking those who had worked for decades to promote domestic energy production and job creation in Alaska.
But in less than ten minutes the sale was over. There were only 13 bids on 11 of 22 tracts. Most bids were at or just above the minimum of $25/acre and the sale netted only $14.4 million, a far cry from what the CBO had estimated. Even the pro-industry website Petroleum News described the results as "somewhat disappointing."
Perhaps most surprising and controversial was that nearly all of the bids--9 of the 11 awarded--were submitted by a state-owned investment corporation, not the oil and gas industry. The Alaska Investment Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) was created by the state legislature in 1967 to help foster economic growth largely by partnering with banks to provide low cost loans to businesses. Board members are appointed by the governor and profits are pumped back into the corporation or shared with the state. In recent years, however, AIDEA has come under fire for its lack of transparency and what many view as ill-advised investments in energy development projects.
The decision to bid on refuge leases was no exception. AIDEA made a cryptic announcement on Friday, December 18 that it would be meeting in executive session two days before Christmas to discuss "confidential matters" and vote on a resolution related to the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund. The following Monday, under pressure from activists and journalists, AIDEA finally released the resolution on whether to spend up to $20 million on the lease sale. Despite an outpouring of criticism from the public, it passed unanimously.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has always been a larger than life symbol, both to the environmentalists and Indigenous Gwich'in who have sought to protect it and the politicians who have tried for decades to open it to development.
Rick Steiner, a conservation biologist in Anchorage who tracks AIDEA closely, believes that the authority not only violated Alaska's public meeting law by not providing proper notice but also may not qualify as an eligible bidder. Because the state of Alaska receives half of the lease sale revenue, AIDEA has a competitive advantage, Steiner says. In addition the authority has presented no clear investment plan for the leases, which Steiner says is required by the corporation's own by-laws. Finally, the authority's board members have not been confirmed by the Alaska legislature adding another layer of legal uncertainty.
"AIDEA is clearly out of control," Steiner told me. "And they know it." Steiner filed a complaint with the Department of the Interior's inspector general in December alleging that the corporation is an ineligible bidder under federal law and that all of its bids should be rejected. According to Steiner, the inspector general's office has told him that they are hoping to issue a decision or referral before the end of this week.
A spokesperson with the Inspector General's office said the complaint is going through the standard intake process. AIDEA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management is moving quickly to finalize the leases before Trump leaves office, which would make it more difficult for the incoming administration to delay or possibly invalidate them. An antitrust review coordinated with DOJ, and which usually takes up to two months, has been completed in just days according to an email obtained by Steiner and bid acceptance letters were sent out last week. AIDEA has 15 days to respond.
Larry Persily, who served on the AIDEA board from 1999 to 2002 and now owns a weekly print newspaper in Wrangell, said that bidding on refuge leases is not the first bad investment AIDEA has made. He points to the authority's decision in the late 1990s to finance a "value added" seafood processing plant in Anchorage that went bust. AIDEA ended up losing about half of the $50 million it had invested in the project. "That was their biggest boondoggle I can remember," Persily said. "It definitely gave them a black eye."
More recently, the authority put $70 million into financing a North Slope oil and gas operation, since purchased by a Singapore-based petroleum company, which has struggled to make its quarterly loan payments. They agency has also been criticized (and sued) for backing the Ambler Road project, a more than 200-mile mining access road through pristine wilderness lands including part of Gates of the Arctic National Park. Two days after the lease sale, AIDEA and DOI signed a 50-year right-of-way permit for the project.
"The [Arctic Refuge] thing was sort of their sticking their toe back into the waters of dumb ideas," Persily said.
Even if AIDEA is deemed to be an eligible bidder and the leases are signed before Biden takes office, the path forward for the state of Alaska is not a promising one. The leasing program will be tied up in courts for months if not years and a judge could send DOI back to square one, forcing the agency to redo the environmental impact statement. In theory a Democratic controlled Congress could vote to permanently protect the coastal plain, though the party's slim majority in the Senate will make this difficult. (See: Manchin, Joe; Senator from West Virginia.) Either way, AIDEA will be stuck with the leases and ultimately the legal fees required if they challenge whatever decisions the Biden administration makes.
It would be foolish to read too much into a single lease sale, held during a pandemic and at a time of historically low oil and gas prices. After all there's plenty of new oil and gas development on Alaska's North Slope, much of it on state land and to the west of the refuge in the National Petroleum Reserve.
But the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has always been a larger than life symbol, both to the environmentalists and Indigenous Gwich'in who have sought to protect it and the politicians who have tried for decades to open it to development. How badly industry wanted it, however, was always a bit of a mystery. Now, it seems, we have our answer: industry didn't want it very much.
During the livestreaming of the lease sale, DOI's MacGregor said that developing the refuge would "reinvigorate" the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which Alaska's politicians have long promised. But the outcome of the sale presages a different future, one that by necessity doesn't rely so heavily on oil and gas extraction. And this is something the state may have no control over.
"If they had held the sale 20 years ago it would have turned out much differently," Persily said. "Regardless of whether it was a good idea then, its time has passed."
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Conservation Group to Sue Trump Officials and Agency Over Delayed Protections for 11 Species
The Center for Biological Diversity points out that Trump's presidency "is coming to an end with the worst record protecting species of any administration since the Endangered Species Act was passed."
Jan 04, 2021
With just over two weeks until President Donald Trump leaves office, the Center for Biological Diversity on Tuesday launched a lawsuit over the delay of federal protections for several species, including the imperiled monarch butterfly, and blasted the outgoing administration's record on at-risk animals, plants, and habitats.
In a statement announcing the suit, the conservation group said that Trump's presidency "is coming to an end with the worst record protecting species of any administration since the Endangered Species Act was passed." The group is accusing two Trump appointees and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), a division of the Interior Department, of violating the ESA by placing 11 species on a candidate list rather than providing them with protections under the 1973 law.
Along with the monarch, the center is focusing on the eastern gopher tortoise, Penasco least chipmunk, longfin smelt, Colorado Delta clam, three Texas mussels, magnificent ramshorn snail, bracted twistflower, and northern spotted owl. The group sent the requisite 60-day notice (pdf) of its planned suit to outgoing Interior Secretary Bernhardt and USFWS Director Aurelia Skipwith.
"To date, the Trump administration has listed only 25 species or just six species per year, the lowest rate of any administration since the act was passed," the group notes. "Such a low rate of listing clearly does not constitute expeditious progress and undermines any claim by the administration that the 11 species included in this notice are precluded by higher priority listing actions."
The center adds:
For comparison, an average of 45 and 65 species per year were listed by the Obama and Clinton administrations, respectively. Given there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of imperiled species in the U.S. that need protection under the ESA to avoid extinction, including more than 500 petitioned species awaiting 12-month findings from the service, there is no explanation for the very small number of species that received protection in the last two years.
"The Trump administration's undermining of the Endangered Species Act puts the monarch butterfly, eastern gopher tortoise, and hundreds more plants and animals at risk of extinction," said Noah Greenwald, the center's endangered species director.
As Common Dreams reported last month, the Trump administration's decision to only declare the monarch butterfly a "candidate" for threatened or endangered species status, even though the insect's numbers have dropped by 90% in recent decades, sparked a flood of condemnation from conservation groups.
In February, the center filed a lawsuit (pdf) in the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C. over the Trump administration's failure to decide whether to list 241 species.
The group said Tuesday that it also "plans to initiate lawsuits for another nine species waiting for listing and 89 species waiting for designation of critical habitat. It hopes to work out a schedule with the Biden administration to ensure these species get protection and avoid extinction."
Greenwald, who signed the group's notice for the 11 species, emphasized the importance of President-elect Joe Biden's administration paving a new path.
"For newly nominated Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to successfully save these species from extinction, it will require more money for endangered species, new leadership at the Fish and Wildlife Service, and a renewed commitment to science and following the law," he said.
Environmental and Indigenous groups have celebrated Biden's selection of Haaland, a Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico, to be his secretary of the interior. However, party control of the Senate--which must confirm the president-elect's Cabinet members--will be determine by two runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday.
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In 'Brutal Blow' to Wildlife and Gift to Big Oil, Trump Finalizes Rollback of Migratory Bird Treaty Act
"The Trump administration is signing the death warrants of millions of birds across the country."
Jan 04, 2021
"Even though a federal court already ruled that the Trump administration cannot eliminate protections for migratory birds, the administration continues its relentless campaign to undermine environmental protections and harm wildlife."
--Jamie Rappoport Clark, Defenders of Wildlife
Just over two weeks before President Donald Trump is set to leave the White House, his U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday finalized a rollback of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act--a law that's been in place since 1918 and which conservation groups credit with holding corporate polluters accountable for harming bird species.
In what the Western Values Project called a "parting gift to Big Oil by corrupt former oil lobbyist Interior Secretary David Bernhardt," the USFWS announced a new rule under which the federal government will no longer penalize or prosecute companies when their actions cause the inadvertent death of birds.
In the case of oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed more than one million birds in 2010; electrocutions by power lines; ducks and other species stuck in fossil fuel tailings ponds; and illegal actions like the spraying of banned pesticides, companies will no longer be held to account as long as they don't intentionally kill birds.
When it was passed into law more than 100 years ago, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) made it illegal to hunt, take, capture, or kill birds from endangered species "by any means or in any manner."
Bernhardt said Tuesday the new rule "reaffirms the original meaning and intent of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act," while the Center for Western Priorities called it a "radical interpretation of the law."
"The Trump administration wants to make sure extractive industries can continue to kill birds after they leave office," said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the group. "Secretary Bernhardt's former oil industry clients have explicitly asked for this policy change, and now he is delivering, just days before returning to the private sector. By finalizing this proposal, the Trump administration is signing the death warrants of millions of birds across the country."
Conservation groups pointed to data showing that three billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970, while six million fewer birds were counted by the Audubon Society in 2019 than previous tallies showed.
As Common Dreams reported in September, the wildfires that overwhelmed the West Coast last year were thought to be behind the deaths of thousands of migratory birds in the southwest.
"This brutal blow hits America's birds when many populations are already plummeting, so it's really the last thing they need," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Trump officials are giving oil companies and other polluters a license to kill birds. Vast numbers of birds will be electrocuted by power lines, drowned in oil waste pits and killed in other easily preventable ways."
Advocates say the MBTA has worked in recent years to show the oil and gas industry that it will be held accountable if its activities kills birds. The federal government reached a $100 million settlement with BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), who was named as President-elect Biden's nominee for Interior Secretary last month, is expected to repeal the USFWS's rule, but that process could take time. Meanwhile, Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) introduced the Migratory Bird Protection Act last year as the administration was considering the rollback, with the aim of reaffirming the original law's intent of protecting vulnerable birds--not corporations.
Advocates also expressed hope that the federal courts will strike down what Greenwald called the Trump administration's "reckless attack on one of America's oldest and most important conservation laws," as Judge Valerie Caproni of the Southern District of New York did in August.
"There is nothing in the text of the MBTA that suggests that in order to fall within its prohibition, activity must be directed specifically at birds," Caproni said in her ruling at the time. "Nor does the statute prohibit only intentionally killing migratory birds."
Jamie Rappoport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife said the group would call on the Biden administration "to restore protections for birds immediately and affirm that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits incidental take."
"Even though a federal court already ruled that the Trump administration cannot eliminate protections for migratory birds, the administration continues its relentless campaign to undermine environmental protections and harm wildlife," said Clark.
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