First, the good news. Last week, a federal court issued a ruling that will allow offshore energy exploration to resume in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea. While the ruling is partially welcomed, and increased access to valuable, job-creating resources is helpful to securing our energy security and stabilizing energy prices, the court did not address the ongoing efforts to keep Alaska’s Chukchi Sea region off-limits. That’s the bad news.

Alaska’s NBC affiliate – KTUU – reported this:

A ruling Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for Shell Oil to resume its exploration and development in the Beaufort Sea.

The court’s ruling says the Bush administration was correct in not demanding a new environmental impact assessment for the company’s drilling leases.

The suit filed by the North Slope Borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission alleged that the Minerals Management Service was supposed to have included additional environmental work in its studies before a lease sale took place in 2007.

The court rejected those claims.

The decision allows Shell Oil to continue exploration and development of off-shore oil prospects in the Beaufort, but it does not affect Shell’s leases in the Chukchi Sea, which are tied up with a separate lawsuit by environmental groups and the village of Point Hope.

And while the legal system and punitive lawsuits continue to take aim at safe and environmentally-sound offshore energy production in Alaska, other proposals moving forward in Congress are no treat either. Cap-and-trade, the criminalization of carbon emissions, would deliver a major blow to much of Alaska’s energy economy and to working-families throughout the state. Alaskans are fighting back, though.

This from the Anchorage Daily News:

At Monday morning’s downtown rally, Alaska business leaders and political conservatives argued that the bill will cook Alaska’s goose: future oil and gas production, both onshore and offshore. The rally was sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute and 40 to 50 local organizations, according to local organizer Willis Lyford. The API is sponsoring roughly 20 similar rallies in cities around the country.

Nearly one-third of Alaska’s workers owe their jobs to the oil industry, warned Vince Beltrami, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, citing a recent University of Alaska Anchorage study.

“This legislation will cost jobs in the long term,” Beltrami said.