Arctic drilling rules could be softened

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is moving to loosen rules around offshore drilling in the Arctic in a bid to encourage oil and gas development there.

The Interior Department has proposed cutting almost half the existing regulations, which it described as “unnecessary” and “burdensome.”

“As countries like Russia increase their presence in the Arctic — including the use of U.S. technologies to develop their seabed resources, it is increasingly important to ensure that the United States has a strong presence in the Arctic,” Deputy Interior Secretary KateMacGregor said in a statement. “The Beaufort and Chukchi seas have a long legacy of oil and gas development.

“We believe these proposed revisions will better harness new technological innovation and best science to allowfor responsible domestic energy development.”

Drilling off Alaska’s northern coast, however, largely has proved unsuccessful. Royal Dutch Shell stopped its offshore operations there in 2015.

But the European oil major hasn’t given up entirely. In August, Shell told Alaska officials

that it was planning to drill some leases it held in the Beaufort Sea, near existing onshore oil and gas production, the research firm S&P Global Platts noted.

The move by the Trump administration comes just two months before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. The administration is making a final push to curtail environmental regulations the oil industry long has been critical of and to open federal lands and waters to energy companies.

Last week, the Interior Department announced plans to auction oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — 19 million acres of mostly untouched wilderness, which Biden has opposed developing — before Trump leaves office.

That has drawn criticism from environmentalists and Native Americans who live in that region of Alaska.

“The Trump administration’s plan to auction off our sacred lands in the Arctic Refuge for oil drilling disrespects our human rights, ignores public opinion and denies the crisis of climate change,” Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the steering committee for the Gwich’in tribe, said in a statement.