Court Rejects Trump's Arctic Drilling Proposal in
'Huge Victory for Polar Bears and Our Climate'
Dec. 08, 2020 12:38PM
By Jessica
Corbett
Climate
action advocates and wildlife defenders celebrated Monday after the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the Trump administration's approval of
Liberty, a proposed offshore oil-drilling project in federal Arctic waters that
opponents warned would endanger local communities, animals, and the
environment.
"This
is a huge victory for polar bears and our climate," declared Kristen
Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a
statement. "This project was a disaster waiting to happen that should
never have been approved. I'm thrilled the court saw through the Trump
administration's attempt to push this project through without carefully
studying its risks."
Marcie
Keever, legal director at Friends of the Earth, similarly applauded the ruling,
saying that "thankfully, the court put the health of our children and our
planet over oil company profits."
Both groups
joined with fellow advocacy organizations Defenders of Wildlife, Greenpeace,
and Pacific Environment for a lawsuit challenging the Hilcorp Alaska project,
which was approved in 2018. The energy company planned to construct an
artificial island, wells, and a pipeline along the Alaska coast in the Beaufort
Sea.
Jeremy
Lieb, an attorney at the nonprofit law organization Earthjustice, which
represented the advocacy groups, praised the court for rejecting the
administration's "inaccurate and misleading analysis of this project's
impact to the climate." The court determined that the administration hadn't
properly considered Liberty's climate impacts as required by the National
Environmental Policy Act, specifically taking issue with an economic model
claiming the project would benefit the climate.
"In
the face of a worsening climate crisis, the federal government should not be in
the business of approving irresponsible offshore oil development in the
Arctic," Lieb said. "The world cannot afford to develop new oil
prospects anywhere, but especially in the Arctic where warming is already taking
such a significant toll."
Research
has shown that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world, which
has devastating effects on its human and animal inhabitants — including
caribou, polar bears, reindeer, and walruses — and the planet more broadly. As
one expert put it last year: "What happens in the Arctic does not stay in
the Arctic."
Calling the
court ruling "a victory for the planet and its people," Greenpeace
senior research specialist Tim Donaghy said that it "affirms that the U.S.
must take steps to transition off of oil and gas if we are to have any hope of
halting the climate crisis."
"If we
are going to create a just, green, and peaceful future, it must start with
rejecting destructive projects like Liberty," he explained, before
referencing President-elect Joe Biden's win over President Donald Trump. Ahead
of the November election, climate advocates had rallied around Biden while
pushing him to embrace bolder policies.
"Climate
action must happen now and the Biden administration needs to keep its promise
to halt any new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters," Donaghy
said.
In addition
to the climate finding, the court also determined that the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service failed to sufficiently analyze Liberty's impact on polar
bears, in violation of the Endangered Species Act — a decision that was
welcomed by Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska program director at Defenders of
Wildlife.
"Today's
news is a victory for Alaska's imperiled polar bears that are threatened by oil
and gas development throughout virtually all of their terrestrial denning
critical habitat — in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, National Petroleum
Reserve-Alaska, and in the nearshore marine environment as well," she
said, vowing to "continue our fight against destructive oil and gas
drilling and for the survival of polar bears in the Arctic."
Despite the
win for the region's polar bears in terms of offshore drilling, the animals are
still threatened by the Trump administration's ongoing effort to open up the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas extraction — despite opposition
from local Indigenous people as well as environmentalists.
The
administration on Monday proposed an "incidental harassment
authorization" that would allow energy companies to disrupt polar bears
while looking for oil and gas deposits. According to Reuters:
The Fish
and Wildlife Service said that no polar bears are expected to be injured or
killed during seismic operations, some of which are scheduled to take place
next month, and expects disturbances to impact only a few bears.
But several
veteran Arctic scientists and environmentalists in Alaska have warned against
seismic operations — which can involve blasting to produce sonic images of
underground formations. They argue the testing will upset wildlife and that the
heavy machinery and activity involved in the work will damage tundra and speed
up the thaw of permafrost.
As Monsell
concluded: "The Trump administration seems determined to push polar bears
further down the path to extinction before leaving office."
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