Hey, maybe this is the way it’s always gone, but you tell us if you see anything wrong with this picture:

Federal agency (we’ve changed the names to protect the guilty) informs private companies that, after years of environmental assessment, areas offshore Alaska will be available for lease; private company makes good-faith bid for the right to lease that acreage, wins bid, and turns over billions to federal agency; after a few more years of wrangling, federal agency informs private company that exploration may proceed, albeit conditionally; a third-party doesn’t like that decision, and files a lawsuit to stop it; the conversation over the future of that lease now expands to include the third-party litigant, the courts, and the federal agency – but contracted to exclude the company that invested those billions of dollars in the lease in the first place.

Follow all that? In 114 words, that’s basically the situation as it presently exists up here in Alaska. On Dec. 7, we blogged on this very site that Secretary Salazar’s MMS agency had tentatively approved of Shell’s plan to do preliminary work on three of the wells it leased from the government in 2008 – not talking about anything major here, just drilling a couple of test wells to see whether the $2.1 billion investment it made in the area last go-round could potentially bear fruit.

Is it possible the anti-energy groups read that post? Tough to know for sure, but it sure didn’t take ‘em long to strike. Last week, two separate rounds of lawsuits were filed in San Francisco’s Ninth Circus court: one by a long-time anti-energy group here in Alaska supported by national environmentalists, and the other? Well, by those same national environmentalists themselves:

A coalition of environmental groups and Arctic communities has filed a second lawsuit aimed at blocking a Shell Oil subsidiary from drilling in the Beaufort Sea.

The group sued Tuesday, hours after a group that helps manage Eskimo whaling in Alaska filed a similar lawsuit.

Both suits aim to block plans by Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. to drill two wells off Alaska’s north coast.

On one hand, none of this should’ve come as a surprise to anyone who’s been following this issue with any intensity. Back in September, we passed along some interesting numbers compiled by the Institute for Energy Research on how many energy-related leases have been the object of litigation from these folks over the past few years:

The number of suits filed in federal court to delay, defer or outright deny the development of domestic energy resources has grown more than 700 percent in the past decade; from 167 protests per year between 1997 and 2000, to 1,180 a year from then until now.

How amazing is that? 1,200 lawsuits a year – three-and-a-half separate instances of suit filed each and every day. It’s quite a racket this groups have going, if you ask us – and none plays the racket any better than the Crag Law Center in Portland, Ore. According to its own website, this outfit is responsible for locking up millions of acres of taxpayer-owned land, working to prevent dead trees and under-brush from being taken off the forest floor, and even filing suit to prevent a McDonald’s restaurant from opening its doors. Seriously, guys? You’ve never had the McRib?

In any event, folks who actually live here in Alaska and care about its economic future and well-being aren’t taking the news of these lawsuits lying down. By way of the Juneau Empire (did you know that Juneau’s the only U.S. state capital that’s inaccessible by roadway?), we get word from the governor’s office that the state of Alaska “will intervene” in the case:

Gov. Sean Parnell said the state intends to show its support of a federal decision allowing Shell to proceed with offshore oil exploration.

The governor said the state will intervene in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups challenging the decision by the Minerals Management Service.  Shell plans on drilling three exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea next year off Alaska’s northwest coastline.

Environmental groups bitterly oppose drilling.

That last line has it right: these groups bitterly oppose both the process for, and the product of, exploring for American energy. We get that. Unfortunately, now that the folks charged with actually exploring for that energy have been cut out of the process, the conversation on how to proceed in the future is now limited to the entities on this list: 1) Groups that “bitterly” oppose exploration, 2) Courts that bitterly oppose it too, and 3) a federal agency headed up by a man who, though not bitter, seems to oppose it right along with the rest.

Oh boy: we can’t WAIT to see how this whole thing turns out.