For those who continue to cling to the argument that oil and gas exploration is allowed to take place en masse without proper environmental assessment or oversight – or that permits issued by the federal government are a mere formality – consider the press release that just popped into our inbox today from MMS.

“MMS Determines Shell Exploration Plan for Beaufort Sea Complete,” the statement reads. Well, that’s a relief. What kind of plan are we taking about, exactly?

Shell proposes activities limited to the far western area of Camden Bay, including use of one drillship with one tending ice management vessel drilling two wells over the course of one year.

Two wells in the far western end of Camden Bay? Itself located in the remote Beaufort Sea of northeast Alaska? Not exactly a pell-mell rush to drill the peak of Mt. McKinley, is it? Wonder if there’s any way to determine when Shell originally submitted this plan for consideration to MMS.

Gotta love the Internet. This comes from a story published on February 1, 2007:

In a Beaufort Sea exploration plan filed with the U.S. Minerals Management Service, Shell Offshore Inc. has proposed to drill … in the Camden Bay area of the Beaufort Sea … Sivulliq, formerly called Hammerhead, lies due north of Flaxman Island on the western side of Camden Bay. The prospect contains a known oil pool penetrated by two exploration wells drilled by Unocal in 1985 and 1986.

So let’s see if we have this straight: Two-and-a-half years after Shell submitted its exploration plan to MMS, the agency is finally getting around to acknowledging its receipt. At least, though, the work of producing Alaska’s energy for the American people can begin now in earnest, right? Now that MMS has deemed the plan to be “complete”?

Not on your life. In addition to waiting for Interior secretary Ken Salazar to “review [the plan] carefully to ensure that it is technically sound” before being allowed to move forward, the MMS press release lays out just a few last minute things that need to be addressed as well:

Before MMS would allow activity to proceed, Shell must also meet the coastal zone management requirements of the State of Alaska, air and water quality rules by the Environmental Protection Agency, and Marine Mammal Protection Act requirements of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service.

Got all that? Keep it in mind the next time someone tells you that oil and gas companies are marauding about the landscape in Alaska, dropping wells wherever they please. Only if they’ve got the requisite 3,153,032 permits in place first, it seems. And even then, they should expect to sit back and wait a couple years for the bureaucrats to review their application.

Good thing our nation doesn’t have any serious energy challenges to confront…or else a system like this might be seen as downright silly!