Tuesday, April 13, 2010 4:20 PM
Salazar: Obama Never Considered Drilling In ANWR
By Christopher Snow Hopkins, NationalJournal.com
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reaffirmed this afternoon that the president never considered drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. "The fact of the matter is that the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge is not on the map for exploration or development," he said. "It never has been under President Obama."
The statement came on the heels of the secretary's announcement that the U.S. Geological Survey will study the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas before the federal government offers new areas for leasing. The Arctic's extreme environment warrants a special review, said one of Salazar's deputies, Alan Thornhill of the Minerals Management Service.
"It is important that we understand how oil behaves in an ice-clogged environment," Thornhill said. "... What are the appropriate assets that we need to have on site, on hand, for immediate response to anything large or small that may happen."
USGS Director Marcia McNutt underscored that the government would proceed with caution to ensure that the proposed expansion does not harm marine mammals or the ecosystem at large.
But her primary concern is equipping the region to deal with a large-scale disaster, such as an oil spill.
"The number one... line of defense is to make sure [oil spills] don't happen in the first place, she said. "But then the second thing is rapid response. You have to have equipment and people on hand in the immediate vicinity, and that is your second line of defense. If you don't have equipment and trained people that know how to immediately respond within minutes to an hour of the incident, your ability to contain the problem goes down rapidly."
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