Alaska Becomes Latest State To Request Limits On US Offshore Drilling
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/alaska_becomes_latest_state_to_request_limits_on_us_offshore_drilling-30-jan-2018-153331-article/January 30, 2018
...While Walker supports offshore oil development, he said the Interior Department should focus on the most prospective areas off Alaska – the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in the Arctic and Cook Inlet in southern Alaska – and drop all others from the leasing plan.
In asking for proposed lease sales to be dropped, Walker, an independent, joins governors of several other coastal states after Zinke's unexpected move to exempt Florida from the department's plans soon after the initial announcement.
"Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is a partner with Alaska in many resource development projects, but a key threat in the effort to achieve a vibrant offshore program in Alaska is creating the false impression that there is an imminent attempt to foster development along our entire coast,†Walker said in a statement.
Proposed lease sales for other offshore regions in Alaska, in areas spanning the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, should be removed from the plan, Walker said. The Interior Department should also maintain long-established buffers for Native Inupiat whalers and a traditional 25-mile no-leasing buffer along the Chukchi coast, the statement said.
Walker's comments echo those of the all-Republican Alaska Congressional delegation, which in a letter to Zinke on Friday asked the department to keep the Chukchi, Beaufort and Cook Inlet sales in the plan but cut the 11 proposed sales in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska....
