Drill, Shell, Drill In....The Arctic?

by JASmius



See, this is what happens when the Toxic Avenger goes on vacation for a month - his minions start losing their utopian focus and drift back toward logic, rationality, and reasonableness:

The federal government on Monday gave Royal Dutch Shell the final permit it needs to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska's northwest coast for the first time in more than two decades.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced that it approved the permit to drill below the ocean floor after the oil giant brought in a required piece of equipment to stop a possible well blowout.

Hugely expensive and unnecessary, most likely.

The agency previously allowed Shell to begin drilling only the top sections of two wells in the Chukchi Sea because the key equipment, called a capping stack, was stuck on a vessel that needed repair in Portland, Oregon.

Because the vessel arrived last week, Shell is free to drill into oil-bearing rock, estimated at 8,000 feet below the ocean floor, for the first time since its last exploratory well was drilled in 1991.

Or, to put it into perspective, a year before my oldest kid was born.  Because why would we ever want to tap the twenty six BILLION barrels of oil that await us in whatever part of the Arctic O hasn't given away yet?

"Activities conducted offshore Alaska are being held to the highest safety, environmental protection, and emergency response standards," agency Director Brian Salerno said in a statement Monday. "We will continue to monitor their work around the clock to ensure the utmost safety and environmental stewardship." [emphasis added]

I hope Salerno is updating his resume while he's at it, because he's probably going to be back in the job market in the near future.  Either that, or Shell must have paid one honking big bribe and/or tribute to win release of this quarter-century embargo.

The Sierra Club is squawking as one would expect, and will immediately sue to and succeed in blocking the Chukchi project.  They were probably caught off guard by the Regime giving Royal Shell the, er, "green" light.

My questions are (1) is this just an aberration or are more resumptions of Arctic drilling in the, um, pipeline?  And (2) did O get Czar Putin's permission for Shell to drill in his ocean?  Looks like he might have to recall that tank and cannon just in case.