EPA Organizes Barrow-Kaktovik Meetings With Less Than A Week’s Notice!

NGP Readers: If you can attend these EPA meetings in Kaktovik and Barrow, please do!

ADN.  The federal Environmental Protection Agency is holding two public hearings in Barrow this week over air and water permits the agency is preparing to propose for oil and gas exploration in Alaska’s Arctic.  (Actually there are three meetings, characterized as information ‘sharing’ meetings — not public hearings — and are scheduled for Barrow and Kaktovik today, tomorrow and Friday.  -dh) EPA officials say the goal of the meetings is to present information about the permits before a formal public comment period begins.  One of the meetings is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Inupiat Heritage Center. The other is set for 9 a.m. Friday at Barrow High School.  Comment:  we hope some received this notice before we did today in this morning’s Anchorage Daily News.  This is typical of this Administration–calling official gatherings ‘meetings’ or ‘listening sessions’ to evade the responsibility of giving proper public notice.  Yes, the EPA says these are "information sharing" sessions with formally announced comment periods to follow in July with public hearings in Barrow and Anchorage intended for late August.  But the specific dates are not being released. So, Barrow residents who may be available on short notice of this week’s ‘sharing’ meetings might be able to share, but Alaska Native and other residents, state executives or business leaders who don’t live in Barrow but who do have an interest in Alaska’s Arctic oil and gas future will have little ability and inadequate notice to ‘share’ in this week’s meetings.  "Sharing" information with some stakeholders and not others violates the public interest if not the letter of the law.  We urge state and industry officials to explore these ‘end runs’ on due process.  The public interest seems violated by a process that doesn’t properly advertise meetings and extend sharing opportunity to all Alaskans.   Question:  The White House last Friday night ordered the BOEMRE and other agency employees to drop their Congressionally funded duties to support the Interagency Ocean Task Force ‘listening session’ in Anchorage.   We wonder if the White House will order other Alaskan based federal agencies to support the EPA’s summer trips to Alaska…or will the EPA’s Region X and Alaska offices support these meetings without help from Interior Department resources? 

Pardon us if you think we’re being too critical of federal leaders for mismanaging, misappropriating and misusing taxpayer resources to combat the exploration for and development of America’s natural resources–at the expense of the national economy, national security and even the environment.   But while Alaskans from every direction prize the subsistence and natural qualities of our state, most hope to deliver an economy to our children that will enable them to survive and be capable of remaining a part of the Great Land.  -dh  (Redstate by Steve Maley.  A ruling by the Environmental Appeals Board of the EPA has scuttled Shell Oil Company’s plan to drill its initial exploratory test in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. This is at least the second time drilling has been deferred or delayed due to environmental concerns. But this time, the reason proffered by EPA seems to be “Because we can.”)