In unusually harsh criticism, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the Trump Administration failed to adequately consider oil spills, climate change and the welfare of polar bears in its rush to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The criticism which appeared in written comments filed by the agency stated that Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) failed to consider oil spill response planning, analyze impacts of climate change in the Arctic, require polar bear denning habitat surveys; pointed to substantial information gaps and implied that the agency in charge of drafting the DEIS (the Bureau of Land Management) failed to properly consult with USFWS as required by federal law.
The Fish and Wildlife oversight agency comments come at a time of increasing criticism of the BLM’s proposal to lease 400,000 acres in ANWR which is the largest wildlife sanctuary in the United States and which serves has habitat for multiple species including bears, caribou, lynx and muskox. Because 16 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves also lie underneath the area, it is a major component of President Donald Trump’s “Energy Dominance” strategy.
Not only do the USFWS comments illustrates that even federal agency’s are starting to resist the administration’s rush to develop resources in the Arctic at the expense of environmental laws but, like the rest of Trump Arctic drilling campaign, the flawed permitting process which includes an order from the President that the National Environmental Policy Act process be completed within one year and the Final EIS be no more than 150 pages, may result in litigation. Such shortcutting of a process which is intended to be thorough and normally takes years and thousands of pages of documentation, can mean the failure to fully analyze significant impacts, tribal consultation and coordination will be inadequate, important scientific data will be ignored, and the public notice and comment process will be negatively impacted.