Anchorage Daily Planet.  Alaskans should be furious that Shell again is being forced to postpone its Arctic drilling program, until at least 2012, because of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency delays in issuing air pollution permits.

The permits – for diesel engines aboard exploration vessels – were issued nearly a year ago, but the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and environmental organizations appealed. The EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board in Washington, D.C., ordered more work on the permits.

The Anchorage Daily News reported: “One of the issues: The Seattle office said the permit would take effect once the drilling ship, the Noble Discoverer, set anchor at the drilling site and would cease when the Discoverer pulled anchor and left. The Native and environmental groups argued the EPA should also have regulated the ship and its helper vessels during the transit to and from the site, and the appeals board agreed that issue should have been addressed.”

Good grief.

Shell says only “urgent and timely action” on permits and regulations will save the offshore drilling program, even for 2012. It had hoped to drill five wells last summer, but the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico and an unfavorable court ruling pushed its plans to this summer.

The EPA has cost this state 800 jobs and again delayed the company’s plans to find and produce new oil for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline at a time when throughput in the line is dropping at 7 percent per year.

Because of that, Alaska stands on the brink of a frightening fiscal future and can do nicely without a balky federal agency apparently bent on doing the bidding of environmental interests when it should be more worried about the national interest in these times of international unrest.

Shell has spent $3 billion and a great deal of time trying to satisfy the federal agencies which seem bent on sidetracking exploration and production in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. It has engineered and re-engineered its safety mechanisms and redesigned its drilling procedures. It deserves a chance at the “world-class” discoveries it believes it will find.

Alaskans should be furious.