Imagine a world where one, single government agency would study all potential impacts of energy exploration offshore, and then, upon completion of its work, however long it needed to take, be empowered to issue one, single permit to allow that project to proceed. Now imagine a world with no heaven — it’s easy if you try. No hell below us; above us only sky. Good tune, right? Snap out of it, man: No such government office exists. Even so, the good guys score a win every now and again – and the news out of EPA today on Shell’s pending air permit would certainly qualify as that.  

We’ll let Reuters’ Alaska writer take the story from here:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday tentatively approved a key air-quality permit that would allow Royal Dutch Shell to conduct oil-drilling operations later this year in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea.

The permit would allow emissions from the drilling ship and associated vessels that Shell plans to mobilize in the Chukchi during the summer and autumn open-water season. …

“We very much appreciate the work done by EPA Region 10 to issue Shell a draft air permit for our 2010 Chukchi drilling program,” Pete Slaiby, Shell Alaska’s vice president, said in a statement. “The issuance of this draft permit starts the clock on a critical timeline of events that will ultimately determine if we can explore our Alaska leases in 2010,” he added.

Interestingly, word of EPA’s long-awaited decision on the air permit hit our mailboxes a full 18 hours before we read about it on the Reuters site. Who gets credit for breaking the story? Not exactly sure it’s the most scientific calculation ever made, but a press release from new Alaska senator Mark Begich migrated into our Outlook at 5:35 PM yesterday afternoon. And the sentiment it contained hit the target squarely on the mark:

“Alaska has long been America’s energy storehouse and a green light on this Shell development means Alaska’s energy will continue to help fuel our nation’s factories and automobiles,” Begich said. “It has become increasingly clear that energy policy is national security policy, and the U.S. needs to focus more on production of our rich energy resources right here at home. Let’s stop paying billions a year to hostile countries and start putting Alaskans to work.”

But while it might’ve slid into a home a half-second late, the Reuters piece is indispensible in one key regard: It adds some much needed context to the challenges that remain before a single drop of oil can ever be produced in the Chukchi. Shell manager Peter Slaiby lays out the landscape in an extended quote toward the bottom of the piece:

“While today’s announcement is good news, the length of the public comment period combined with likely appeals still pushes the boundaries of our ability to drill in 2010,” he said in his statement. “Obviously, the windows in which we have to operate are limited and a decision to move forward is an extremely expensive one. We will continue to monitor our options in the days ahead as we get closer to making that critical decision.”

Ah, yes: The public comment period. Where would we be without it? Seriously: Where would the Interior Department be if it weren’t able to access the sage advice and unique wisdom found in the thousands of identical form letters aggregated and sent in by well-meaning environmental groups? Of course, in reality, these folks aren’t interested in using the public comment period as a force for good – only as a means of delay.

Incidentally, the only public comment period that should matter, in our estimation, is the public hearing that EPA is holding with Alaskans next month – on February 16. The Anchorage paper sheds some additional light on how that effort is slated to go down:

The EPA is taking public comment on its proposed permit through Feb. 17, Begich said. The EPA has tentatively scheduled a public hearing for Feb. 16 in Barrow that would be teleconferenced in Wainwright, Point Lay, Point Hope and Atqasuk, communities that could be affected by Chukchi oil and gas development.

And, by the way: If you can’t make that hearing, you shouldn’t hesitate to shoot off an email from wherever you’re at. According to EPA, you should direct your correspondence here: R10ocsairpermits@epa.gov. And if you click here, you’ll find about 150 other ways in which you can make your voice heard.

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.

Sure, we caught the piece in the USA Today this week about how salaries for U.S. government workers have jumped a staggering 46 percent during “the worst recession since the Great Depression,” as President Obama describes it.

And sure, like you, our first reaction was to be a bit taken back – what, with a full 20 percent of the federal workforce now making in excess of $100,000 a year, and the average federal wage $30,000 a year more than what the average private sector employee takes home. Did we mention that 15 million Americans are currently out of work?

But hey: At least some of these taxpayer-funded employees have been working their tails off lately, right?

Consider the case of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A previously obscure sub-agency of a third-tier cabinet office, NOAA made news twice this week: First, for putting out an impressive, 32-page document establishing a formal process for re-zoning offshore energy development off the map in this nation; and second, for getting some serious loot appropriated its way by Congress. E&E News has the details:

The omnibus allots more than $4.7 billion for NOAA, which would be the largest budget ever for the oceans and climate science agency. The nearly 9 percent increase is a greater spending boost than either the House bill or the White House had requested.

Yikes — NOAA got more cash from Congress than the administration even wanted? But at least we know what the agency will be spending it on.  Almost three months to the day after NOAA first published its “interim report” on the feasibility of establishing a nebulous “Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force,” it was back at it again this week – promulgating a formal “framework” for implementing its “marine spatial planning” policy. Its purpose? To “improve ecosystem health and services by planning human uses in concert with the conservation of important ecological areas.” Orwell would doubtless be proud.

Of course, none of this should be considered unexpected – both the September “task force” document and the new NOAA administrator herself have been clear in declaring the ultimate intent of this bureaucratic exercise. Heck, Administrator Lubchenco didn’t even try to keep this a secret when asked to testify about her plans before the House Natural Resources Committee in September, remember?

The head of [NOAA] strongly opposes ocean planning and aquaculture provisions in a sweeping House bill focused on overhauling the federal royalty system. …

Lubchenco said the bill’s ocean use provisions should be considered as part of a more comprehensive plan. …

“As urgent as energy needs are today, a broader strategy that recognizes the importance of energy along with other critical uses of oceans is more likely to produce long-lasting benefit to the nation,” Lubchenco told the Natural Resources Committee.

Might not seem like much of a scolding to you, but trust us – Chairman Rahall got served.

Thankfully, and as we’ve written on this blog in the past, some folks understand the severity of the gathering threat before us, and are starting to take positive steps to inform their friends, neighbors and constituents of the serious implications associated with this policy becoming law.

In October, 69 members of Congress – 59 Republicans, 10 Democrats – wrote a letter to the White House detailing their concerns with the NOAA plan. And just last month, AIF’s Barney Bishop took the pages of the Bradenton Herald to lay out his case for why “NOAA’s arc,” such as it is, is a bad deal for Florida:

The plan calls for nothing less than the “zoning” of our ocean areas, treating vast expanses of submerged federal tracts as if they were blight on a city block. You want to get rid of an undesirable business down the street that’s been making too much noise? Zone it off the map. You want to make sure that no energy exploration is allowed? Do the same.

And make no mistake: that’s what this thing is really about here. Lots of folks in the federal government – very many of whom earning in excess of $100,000 a year – would prefer to shut down all forms of energy development offshore. They just don’t trust the Interior Department to do it. The solution? Have NOAA do the dirty work for ‘em, all in the name of “sound science.”

That’s the plan, at least. Any chance you’d have any interest in commenting on it?

UPDATE: We see from a quick search of the interwebs that the inestimable Dave Harbour over at Northern Gas Pipelines has commented extensively on this Marine Spatial Planning scheme as well. As you can see, he’s been tracking this thing like a bulldog from the start.

So, OK. Secretary Salazar found his way into our good graces earlier this week by approving a modest 2010 offshore exploratory plan for the Chukchi – basically will allow Shell to drill three separate test wells further than 60 miles from shore, and maybe, just maybe, provide some clarity regarding whether the $2.1 billion investment it made there in 2008 is worth its salt.

As noted, the news out of Washington wasn’t exactly an unconditional slam dunk. As Shell’s Pete Slaiby noted in the Washington Post on Monday, the Salazar announcement is only one half of the equation — to actually start exploring out there, EPA will need to get off its can as well:

Shell officials called the MMS conditional approval a positive step but noted the company is still waiting for an air discharge permit from the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It’s critical that we achieve this permit in a timeline manner to enable a go-ahead decision on our 2010 program,” said Shell Alaska Vice President Pete Slaiby.

But, OK. At least the secretary is doing his part to move this thing closer to the goal line; and for that, he deserves some encomia. Consider those granted. But then we get press releases from his department like the one we got yesterday – ones that make us stop, reflect, and occasionally laugh out loud.

The release is entitled: “Salazar Announces MMS Plan to Establish Atlantic Renewable Energy Office” – a title that belies the hilarious nature of what’s contained therein. But then you go ahead and read the first sentence:

COPENHAGEN – Today, as he toured the Middelgrunden wind farm near Copenhagen Denmark, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) will establish a new regional office in 2010 to support renewable energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) off the Atlantic seaboard.

Apparently, Secretary Salazar was so inspired by his boat-ride to Middelgrunden this week that he felt compelled – right there and then – to declare it his government’s intention to do something bold – something unprecedented: open up a regional permitting office for offshore wind at the Jersey Shore.

OK, so maybe it’s not buckle-over-in-writhing-pain hilarious, but seriously – if the rest of the world doubted our country’s commitment to addressing climate change before, there simply can be no doubt any longer. Secretary Salazar and his new seashore permit stand has officially put an end to all that.  

We know he’s busy in Copenhagen this week, but wonder if he’ll ever get up to Alaska to see some of the energy resources we’ve got offshore as well?

UPDATE: Interesting sequence of events here, upon further inspection.

On Wednesday, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas announced its intention to continue paying 500 employees at a currently idled plant in Salazar’s home state of Colorado – you heard that right: continue to pay them full salary for producing ZERO new wind turbines. And then on Thursday, Salazar visit a Danish wind farm – one in which Vestas has a significant stake (as would be expected, considering it’s Denmark). Probably just a coincidence, is all.

UPDATE II: In addition to wind, did we mention that greener-than-thou Denmark produces a ton of oil and natural gas offshore as well? Secretary Salazar’s press release didn’t indicate whether he visited any of THOSE offshore installations on his boat ride to Middelgrunden – so just in case that little part of Denmark’s history was omitted from his briefing materials, we include this (by way of the Toronto Globe and Mail):

In reality, the Danish economy is more dependent on fossil fuels and the wealth they create than at any time in the country’s history. The fuels come from the North Sea, whose reserves gave Denmark its first oil production in 1972.

In 1990 Denmark’s oil production was 7-million cubic metres (one cubic metre equals 6.3 barrels). Production peaked at 22.6-million cubic metres in 2004. In 2007, the figure was a still-hefty 18.1-million. Natural gas production has doubled since 1990.

A reader reminds us that Maersk Oil is especially prolific in these parts of the North Sea; this map of its existing offshore production facilities (lifted from its website) would seem to confirm that.

Only one state in the Union produces more American oil each year than Alaska, and no: contrary to conventional wisdom (see below), it’s not Rhode Island. Of course, that honor goes to our friends from Texas – but here’s an interesting nugget for you: For as much oil as Texas produces onshore, even more comes from the state’s adjacent (and federal) Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

This prolific tract is more commonly known as the Gulf of Mexico – and for the offshore doubters out there, it stands today as a vexing monument to what can be achieved when cutting-edge, space-age technology meets a localized federal energy policy that encourages producers to go out and look around.

Of course, that same technology is available up here in Alaska. What’s lacking, however, is the federal policy piece – one that would finally allow our state to do for the nation (and itself) what states along the Gulf Coast have continued to do, and successfully so, for the better part of three generations.

You can take a look at the numbers for yourself on this phenomenon; they don’t lie. Alaska produced 249,874,000 barrels of oil for American energy consumers in 2008 – not a single drop of it from energy-rich areas along the state’s adjacent federal OCS. And it’s not as if folks have gone out to look for some out there and come back empty-handed. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that as many as 157 billion barrels of oil – 15 ANWRs! – lie ready, willing and able to be gotten above the Arctic Circle – much of that in areas within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

So that’s the policy as it exists today: Yes, there are staggering amounts of energy available for production up here, but no: none of it will be available to create jobs, revenue and opportunity here in the United States. But wait. A column we came across today in the San Luis Obispo (Calif.) Tribune from Earthjustice advisor Buck Parker says it’s “time to correct past wrongs in Arctic oil development.” From the piece:

Salazar should follow the advice of NOAA and hold off permitting new oil and gas activity in the Arctic until we have a better idea of how to respond when oil inevitably leaks and until we know a lot more about Arctic wildlife. … It is not too late for Salazar’s Interior Department to correct course and protect the Arctic Ocean.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but let us reiterate: Not a stitch of oil development has taken place in the Arctic – not because there’s no energy in the area, but because the federal government has done everything in its power (real and perceived) to deny us access to it. Apparently, this point isn’t fully known by this fella from Earthjustice – because, after all, he wouldn’t knowingly mislead his readers into thinking otherwise. Would he?

The full column is probably worth your read, if for no reason than to fully appreciate the lengths to which anti-energy activists will go to convince the American people that oil exploration in Alaska’s OCS is happening right now, that it’s ruining a pristine environment, and that federal officials must act at once to “correct past wrongs” in the region by bringing existing development to an immediate end.

But there’s no need to worry, Mr. Parker. Your apparatchiks in Washington are doing a bang up job at preventing that development as it is.

“The enemy of conventional wisdom,” John Kenneth Galbraith, who coined the term, once wrote, “is not ideas, but the march of events.” And although it doesn’t appear as if the former U.S. ambassador to India was talking about offshore energy’s record of environmental stewardship when he wrote it, that doesn’t make his words any less relevant to an age-old debate that surrounds a fairly simple and straightforward question:

Does energy production offshore pollute our waters? Conventional wisdom might suggest that it does. Can energy production offshore actually help reduce pollution in our waters? Conventional wisdom would suppose that it can’t.

In this case, both would be wrong. We’ll let the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) pick it up from here:

New estimates indicate that the overall amount of petroleum released to the marine environment may be lower than earlier thought. This reflects, in part, advances over the last decade in marine transportation and oil and gas production techniques.

How much “lower than earlier thought” are we talking here? Quite a lot, according to NAS. Turns out that of the measurable hydrocarbon pollution in place in U.S. waters today, 63 percent of it comes from a single, devious source: Mother Nature, in the form of natural seepage. And how much comes from efforts to produce oil and natural gas offshore? Would you believe if it was less than one percent?

Conventional wisdom wouldn’t. Thankfully, the march of events and the efforts of a single man in California are starting to bend the narrative back.  

Go ahead: Just ask a fella named Bruce Allen how hard he’s worked over the years to find folks willing to listen to the facts: He’s testified on Capitol Hill, been published in newspapers across the country, and just this week, even teamed up with The Heritage Foundation to publish a detailed background primer on how increased access to energy offshore would actually help our natural environment, not harm it. From his paper:

The economic benefits from increased domestic hydrocarbon production are well known, but many erroneously assume they come at an environmental cost. In truth, there are opportunities … to achieve substantial environmental benefits from drilling as a consequence of reduced seepage of oil and natural gas into the air and water. Expanded offshore oil and gas production can genuinely be a win-win proposition.

Is it so difficult to understand how this would work? Billions of barrels of oil – and more trillions of units of natural gas – seeps naturally into our nation’s waters each year, literally bursting through the ocean floor and immediately assuming the form of natural pollution.

What if there existed a way – follow us here – that allowed us to access that energy BEFORE it bled out on its own? What if there existed a way to turn a form of pollution into a means of economic revitalization – in so doing, materially reducing the amount of oil that seeps naturally into our nation’s oceans?

Boy, that would be awesome. Wonder if we’ll ever come up with a method for doing it.

Facts are stubborn things, it’s been said, and numbers, such as they are, often betray the annoying habit of speaking for themselves. No one knows this better than Interior secretary Ken Salazar, who earlier this month was made aware that his agency had earned itself the distinction of having leased fewer acres of onshore energy lands than any in modern history.

Now, in his defense, it should be noted the contest was not exactly a run-away: Back in 1989, scarcely one million acres (of the 650 million owned by the federal government) were put up for lease by the administration of George H. W. Bush, doubtless in response to the tragedy in Alaska involving the Exxon-Valdez in March of that year.

Twenty years later, the administration of Barack Obama has found a way to dip below that historical nadir – all the more impressive considering there’s no Exxon-Valdez to demagogue, no $10 oil to take for granted, and no measurable progress heretofore in converting billions of dollars in taxpayer (foreign and domestic) money into real jobs for real American workers.

The folks over at the Institute for Energy Research did all the leg work on this one – all the numbers, charts, and graphs you’ll need to fully appreciate just how poorly this Interior Department performed in 2009 relative to past years are available for download here. And we’d also commend to your attention a great white paper out of Denver written up by the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS).

As you’ll see, the numbers, such as they do, speak for themselves. And so does Secretary Salazar. Unfortunately, instead of admitting to the American people that his agency could have done a better job at leveraging America’s enormous energy potential into jobs and revenues for the American people, this is the slop we get instead:

“We believe that our oil and gas leasing program is robust … But you wouldn’t know it if you listened to the untruths coming out of” oil and gas industry groups.

Salazar said repeated attacks have “all the flavor and deception of election-year politics” … He added that companies’ shareholders do not want industry trade groups to behave like an arm of a political party and said companies should choose a better path, to engage constructively and honestly with federal agencies.

Get all that? It’s not HIS agency’s fault that fewer acres were leased in 2009 than in any year in recent history. It’s not HIS agency’s fault that less than one-tenth the amount of bonus bid receipts were netted from energy producers in 2009 than were collected in 2008. It’s not HIS agency’s fault that it decided to outright nullify existing, legal leases to 77,055 acres of energy-rich land in Utah. No. It’s industry’s fault. And the man’s recriminations don’t end there:

“But Salazar said the department has leased a significant number of properties and noted that there are “huge undeveloped oil and gas acreages” that are under lease but not producing oil and gas.

“Large parts of the public domain have been made available,” Salazar said. “Those places are not being developed, yet we continue to make more of our public domain available for oil and gas development.”

Ah, yes: The 68 million acres canard – the last redoubt of the shameless politician. By now, you know how it goes: Oil companies are squatting on millions of acres of unused land, representing billions of barrels of oil; they aren’t producing any of it, part of a worldwide conspiracy to drive up prices; and naturally, policymakers have an obligation to compel these bad-boy producers to produce – by threatening to take away their leases before they come due.  

Thankfully, the 68 million acres talking point – a favorite of Mr. Salazar, stretching all the way back to his service in the Senate – has been about as thoroughly discredited as a talking point can get. More on that here. But before we go, we have one simple request of Ken Salazar: Mr. Secretary, please don’t pee on our leg and tell us it’s industry’s fault. And stop trying to convince the American people that your agency hasn’t played a material role in denying billions of barrels of American energy from reaching the people who own it.

You’ve heard the argument before; by way of Mad Libs, it tends to go something like this: [Insert state] only has [insert number] billion barrels of oil available for production right now, which only represents [insert number] years of consumption at current rates. So therefore: We shouldn’t lift a finger to produce any of that energy, since it won’t make a dent in supply, price or in decreasing our dependence from hostile, foreign regimes.

It’s an argument that’s rendered completely asinine when the word “oil” is swapped out for any other commodity of value that exists today. Take gold. Could you imagine anyone with half a brain ever suggesting that, since lots of people use the stuff, we shouldn’t get all that excited about stumbling across a few bricks of bullion on our way to work?

Oil shouldn’t be any different: Like gold, it’s a commodity whose value exists (virtually) independent of the market. Sure, prices will go up and down, but oil is energy. And energy is the capacity to do work. And work? Well, work is the misery of the drinking class. But it also happens to be what makes modern civilization both modern and civil. Work makes it work.

But there’s another, more serious deficiency in the “there’s not enough to make a difference, so let’s call the whole thing off” argument. Consider how it’s applied to the state of Alaska. As Alaska governor Sean Parnell wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month:

Alaska’s OCS contains an estimated 27 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. That’s more than twice the amount of oil that has been produced on Alaska’s North Slope since the Trans Alaska Pipeline System went online in 1977. Counting its OCS reserves, Alaska likely has more than 30% of the nation’s recoverable oil and gas.

27 billion barrels of oil – a conservative estimate provided by our friends at the Interior Department, which, as we know, has a vested interest in minimizing to the fullest extent allowed by law the estimated amount of energy available (but forbidden) to the American people.

Now, you don’t need to be a geologist to understand the most basic point here: 27 billion barrels is a hell of a lot of oil. It’s more oil than 310 million Americans can possibly use over the course of nearly four consecutive years – and from just one source! But it’s precisely upon this argument in which opponents of responsible energy development love to sink their proverbial teeth.

And sometimes, those opponents emerge from the unlikeliest of places. Take for example the editorial that appeared right here in Alaska this week, not from the California-owned and energy-anathematic Anchorage Daily News, but from the student newspaper on the campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage:

So, if we divide 27,000,000,000 barrels of oil, by the 19,500,000 barrels we slurp down each day, that’s a grand total of 1,384.61 days, to be exact, or 3.79 years.

Oh. Well that doesn’t do much for our overall dependence on foreign oil problem. Maybe we should revise that claim to say, “Alaska can meet U.S. total energy needs for almost as long as it takes a college student entering as a freshman this year, to graduate and enter the job market as a productive member of an economy that is once again plagued by dependence on foreign oil.”

Yikes. Keep in mind that this blather is coming from the same university that published a landmark study in March 2009 which found that accessing some of the enormous energy resources that reside offshore Alaska could create 35,000 direct jobs for Alaskans, $72 billion in wages, and $6.6 billion in state revenue. Probably a good guess that the student editors of The Northern Light, UAA’s student newspaper, didn’t take the time to give that paper much of a look. Or that many of them even know from whence the funds for their annual Permanent Fund check come.

Lack of due diligence aside, the argument they’re making here is as intellectually dishonest as they come. Yes: 27 billion barrels of oil might only meet four years of U.S. demand, but guess what? Just because energy is produced in Alaska doesn’t mean that energy cannot or will not be produced anywhere else.

Amazing stuff, isn’t it – the idea that we can tap MORE THAN ONE energy resource, in MORE THAN ONE state, at the same time? You know what’s even more amazing? Energy production creates value and jobs up and down the delivery chain – and that’s true no matter where it’s produced, how it’s produced, or how much is produced. And one more thing: for every unit of energy we can produce up here in Alaska, that’s one less unit of energy we need to buy from foreign dictators.

It’s true! And hopefully, it’s a reality our best and brightest at UAA will stumble across as they try to avoid those bricks of gold on the way to their future place of employment.

Just about everyone in America not living in the city of Houston knows that local planning and zoning ordinances are a basic fact of life.

But what would happen if the federal government attempted to apply those same local rules to 1.76 billion acres offshore? Carving up our oceans as if they were city blocks – using the same system to prevent domestic energy exploration as the anti-development crowd uses to defeat the local Wal-Mart. Sounds outrageous, right?

If you thought the Department of the Interior was bad, wait until you get a load of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). An office run directly out of the White House, CEQ has teamed up with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to put forward a new “science-based” approach to regulating our nation’s oceans. The eggheads at NOAA call this thing “marine spatial planning.” All you need to know is that it will result in less access to less energy (and fishing, and tourism opportunities) along America’s outer continental shelf.

Thankfully, if news out of Washington, D.C. is any indication, our elected leaders on Capitol Hill aren’t letting this scam go unnoticed. Led by coastal state representatives and Alaska’s own Don Young, 69 members of the House (59 Republicans, 10 Democrats) sent a letter to CEQ head Nancy Sutley this week demanding an explanation for why they’re doing this, and a clarification on just how many jobs we expect to lose under a policy that bigfoots Interior on offshore management policy. From the AP:

Dozens of U.S. representatives sent a letter Monday to the head of the President’s Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force with concerns that the policy will block offshore energy development and cost jobs.

Sixty-nine House members, including Alaska Rep. Don Young, signed the letter in which they responded to the task force’s interim report released last month.

We’d be remiss here if we didn’t mention the role that NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco is playing in all this. Previously a big-time marine professor at Oregon State, Ms. Lubchenco has written extensively in the past about “our unsustainable use of resources,” the “explosive growth of the human population,” and the “social compact” that “exploiters” such as fishermen and other commercial interests violate daily.

So spare us the press release, please. There can be little doubt that the new NOAA administrator is using this plan to initiate massive changes in the way Americans access their energy offshore – despite what’s being said about the plan publicly.

Here’s an excerpt from the House letter that address these specific points:

We are particularly concerned about the Task Force’s impact on our nation’s ability to safely develop its own offshore energy, including oil, natural gas and renewable energy.  It is critical that the Task Force’s proposals do not inhibit energy activity offshore in domestic waters and undermine the Department of the Interior’s Five Year Leasing Program for offshore energy development.

So, where does any of this leave us today? Tough to say. The oceans plan was recently put up for public comment for a measly 30 days – roughly 210 days fewer than the Interior Department’s five-year energy plan was available to comment on by the American public. How did that comment period end up? CEQ won’t say. We wonder why that is.

Readers of this blog remember well the four-state barnstorming PR tour that Interior secretary Ken Salazar embarked upon earlier this year – at the time, justified as a means of ensuring “we have an open and transparent government” when it comes to implementing a new five-year energy plan.

Make no mistake, Mr. Salazar said: “These are not decisions that are going to be made behind closed doors.” So off he went: first to New Jersey, then to New Orleans, up to Alaska, and rounding out the circus in a city that loves it some Alaskan oil (even if it’s loath to admit it): San Francisco. At each stop, he heard from folks who support offshore energy exploration, folks who oppose it, and occasionally from some colorful birds as well – like the guy in Louisiana who called on the secretary to convene a national summit on (human) population control.

Malthusians aside, the events were supposed to lay the groundwork for a successful public comment period – one in which stakeholders of all shapes, sizes and interests would send in their comments to the secretary, and then wait for the secretary to tally them all up and announce just how the American people felt about expanded energy development here at home.

That’s how it was supposed to work. Unfortunately, more than a month after the comment period expired, we still don’t have so much as a shred of official information on how this thing actually went.

But as the Houston Chronicle reports today, that may be about to change – thanks to none other than former House speaker Newt Gingrich?! From the piece:

A conservative group today prodded the Obama administration to reveal the breakdown of roughly half a million public comments lodged on a Bush-era plan to open up broad offshore areas for oil and gas drilling.

The group, American Solutions, headed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, made the push in a Freedom of Information Act request to the federal government.

The sad thing, of course, is that the American people have to sue their own government to get the results of a PUBLIC COMMENT period. The happy thing? Turns out people over at Interior already have a pretty good sense how this thing turned out – and not many of them, apparently, know how to keep a secret.

According to one group, Consumer Energy Alliance, more than 325,000 pro-energy comments were delivered to Interior over the past five months. But how many letters in TOTAL were sent? Salazar had the good sense not to keep that data point a secret:  

The federal government has received more than 450,000 comments from the public regarding the development of a comprehensive offshore energy strategy for the Outer Continental Shelf, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today.

325,000 positive comments out of a total of 450,000? That’s better than 2:1; heck, it’s actually closer to 3:1. Not to play conspiracy theorist here, but anyone think these totals might have anything to do with the radio silence emanating from the Interior office in Washington?

In any case, this FOIA request is just what the doctor asked for here – not only asking the secretary to tell us how the number shook out, but also requesting that he make public all the emails and memos that have been bouncing back and forth between Interior and MMS. Once we get our hands on those, maybe we’ll finally be able to tell, once and for all, whether this secretary is serious about promoting American energy security.

Until then, though, here we wait – thankful, I suppose, that “we have an open and transparent government” of which we can be eminently proud.