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.

“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.

Thanksgiving is near. And while many families and friends will travel long and far to celebrate and give thanks for their blessings this holiday season, it’s safe to say that seasonal travelers will be universally unthankful for higher gas prices they will pay at the pump.

USA Today reports that AAA “expects 2% more travelers on roadways this year than last, for a total of 33.2 million people.” Under the headline “Higher gasoline prices greet Thanksgiving travelers,” America’s newspaper also reports:

Thanksgiving travelers will find gasoline prices much higher than last year with little hope for respite heading into the rest of the holiday season, oil and gas analysts say.

The national average for a gallon of regular gas was $2.64 on Monday, slightly less than a month ago but up 72 cents a gallon from a year ago, the auto club AAA says.

Increasing domestic energy production – especially in Alaska’s resource-rich Beaufort and Chukchi Seas – would help drive down and stabilize prices at the pump for every single American family. At the same time, safe, responsible, 21^st century energy exploration could create much-needed economic activity and hundreds – if not thousands – of good paying jobs at a time when they are most needed. With unemployment at a 26-year high, and real jobless rate near 17.5 percent, producing more homegrown energy cannot wait.

So how much energy do we have, and what’s stopping us?

Well, in a recent Washington Post column, George Will writes:

In 1914, the Bureau of Mines said that U.S. oil reserves would be exhausted by 1924. In 1939, the Interior Department said that the world had 13 years’ worth of petroleum reserves. Then a global war was fought, and the postwar boom was fueled. In 1951 Interior reported that the world had . . . 13 years of reserves. In 1970, the world’s proven oil reserves were an estimated 612 billion barrels. By 2006, more than 767 billion barrels had been pumped, and proven reserves were 1.2 trillion barrels. In 1977, scold in chief Jimmy Carter predicted that mankind “could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.” Since then the world has consumed three times more oil than was then in the world’s proven reserves.

But surely now America can quickly wean itself from hydrocarbons, adopting alternative energies — wind, solar, nuclear? No.

In his column entitled “Awash in fossil fuels,” Will adds this:

Today, wind and solar power combined are just one-sixth of 1 percent of American energy consumption.

Edward L. Morse, an energy official in Carter’s State Department, writes in Foreign Affairs that the world’s deep-water oil and gas reserves are significantly larger than was thought a decade ago, and high prices have spurred development of technologies — a drilling vessel can cost $1 billion — for extracting them.

Despite these huge, known energy resources – particularly in the Beaufort and the Chukchi – Washington and Secretary Ken Salazar’s Interior Department have failed to move forward with commonsense policies that will help realize America’s energy potentials.

And experts are speaking on this critical issue.

The American Petroleum Institute’s chief economist, Dr. John Felmy, writes about the economic benefits, the environmental safeguards and technological advancements the energy industry continues to make each day in today’s Fort Myers News-Press under the headline “Oil and gas drilling is the right solution for Florida right now”:

Today, rigs and operations are clean, green and safe. The oil and natural gas industry has reduced its environmental footprint and minimized any lasting impact on ecosystems or surrounding wildlife.

Offshore rigs are located far from the horizon, and advanced technologies enable nearly pristine development and delivery of natural resources.

After decades of investment and billions of dollars spent on research, companies can now access previously unreachable depths.

Informed lawmakers and pro-drilling advocates have it right.

Let’s protect our economy — and our shores — through safe, clean energy exploration.

Some state legislative leaders right here in the Last Frontier are working to encourage more oil production, even though our state’s offshore reserves – which would generate taxes, revenues and royalties, helping to fund schools, roads, bridges and hospitals – are largely controlled by Washington’s far-away, forceful grasp.

The Anchorage Daily News recently editorialized about the multi-tracked energy plans being advanced in Juneau. Under the headline “What now on energy?,” the paper writes this about the Senate energy proposal:

Other goals on the Senate’s list include promoting a North Slope gas pipeline, encouraging more oil production, preventing energy price gouging, and coordinating the state’s various energy programs. Few would argue with those goals, but Alaskans don’t necessarily agree on how to achieve them.

In a letter this week from Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich and the state’s at-large congressman, Don Young, to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the delegation writes:

We write in support of Shell Oil’s application for the 2010 Chukchi Sea plan of exploration (POE). As you are well aware, the Chukchi represents what is certainly among the largest conventional, unexplored oil and natural gas fields in the U.S. Shell has spent years of work and billions of dollars to satisfy the complex logistics, planning, and permitting process required by law. We have previously communicated to you this significance of this energy resources to Alaska’s economy, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and domestic energy security.

So how much has Shell spent? Well, according to the delegations release:

Shell Oil, which early last year spent $2.1 billion for exploration rights in the Chukchi, has been unable to proceed with plans to drill up to two exploratory wells on its leases in 2010 because Interior officials have failed to complete a court-ordered environmental assessment in a timely manner.

The delegation didn’t mince words and was straightforward in their release.

Sen. Murkowski

“This delay has gone on long enough. It’s time to get development of Alaska’s resources back on track.”

Congressman Young

“Natural resources are the lifeblood of any developed country and the Chukchi Sea has some of the largest potential in the U.S.”

And in a separate release, under the headline “Begich Pushes Alaska Oil and Gas Development with Top Obama Officials; Calls for Aggressive OCS Development, Gasline Construction,” Alaska’s junior senator says:

“Alaska has long served as this nation’s energy storehouse and with responsible oil and gas development off our coast and a gasline, we can create thousands of good-paying American jobs, supply American homes and factories with clean-burning energy and improve our energy security.”

Sen. Begich’s release also noted that he’s not afraid to buck the party line and full-court press the administration on responsible, job-creating Alaskan energy development:

Begich urged approval of outer continental shelf (OCS) leasing in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea and said construction of an Alaska gasline project can create more American jobs than any single project on the horizon, at a meeting in his office with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Carol Browner, special assistant to the president at the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change.

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.

It’s not every day (or millennium) that we get to comment on some good news on this blog, a function not of our generally misanthropic outlook on life, but rather: the fact that good examples of good news are so darn tough to come by.

But there’s just no way to pooh-pooh the breaking news today from the Interior Department. Turns out that after five years of back-and-forth in the courts, in Congress, and in and around the executive branch, Shell has finally been told that its offshore energy plan in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea is ready to go – paving the way for the company to begin developing exploratory wells next year on two leases in the area.

The Associated Press has the most thorough wrap-up:

A federal agency announced approval Monday of a plan by Shell Offshore, Inc.’s to drill exploratory wells next year on two leases in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s north coast … The Minerals Management Service said Shell must meet certain conditions, including federal air and water quality rules and marine mammal protection requirements.

Shell Alaska vice president Pete Slaiby called it a positive step toward drilling next year.

Keep in mind that these areas were first included for lease by the Interior Department way back in 2002 – and as readers of this blog should know by now, tracts don’t end up in the five-year plan by accident, not without years of pre-study, analysis and, unfortunately, litigation.

All of which is to say: It’s been a long, hard fight for Shell up here, but it seems to be one they’re willing to continue. Seriously: This is a company that has invested billions of dollars to create permanent jobs here and work with and accommodate native communities – all for the opportunity to risk even more money in the pursuit of American energy resources offshore. But no matter how hard bureaucrats in Washington or judges in San Francisco make it to do that work, these guys just keep coming back for more. Good for Shell. And good for Alaska’s Senate delegation for recognizing how good a piece of news this is:

Alaska’s two U.S. senators praised the announcement. Republican Lisa Murkowski called it an encouraging sign that Alaska’s oil and natural gas resources will continue to play a major role in America’s energy security.

Democrat Mark Begich said the decision showed that Interior Secretary Salazar and the Obama Administration recognize the importance of Alaska’s abundant offshore oil and gas resources, including safeguards for important subsistence resources.

Sure, we can talk about how this is just a drop in the bucket; how so much more offshore acreage in Alaska remains under agency lock-and-key; how Shell, BP and others continue to get the run-around in the Chukchi; how the plan approved by Interior essentially forbids exploration activities for the entire months of September and October. But we won’t do that. Today’s a day to tip a cap, and so consider this a formal doff.

UPDATE: You know what they say: When it rains, it pours. Just a day and a half after Interior gave the go-ahead for Shell in the Beaufort, the agency finally came through with an announcement today that the company’s environmental plan for the Chukchi is “complete” along with it. Here’s the latest from the Anchorage paper:  

The federal Minerals Management Service this week deemed Shell Oil’s application to drill exploration wells in the Chukchi Sea next year to be complete.

That triggers a 30-day deadline for the MMS to review the plan and decide whether to approve it, reject it or require changes.

A previous Shell plan for drilling in the Chukchi was rejected by a federal judge, who ordered a new analysis of the impacts of the drilling.

We don’t usually take on issues related to cap-and-trade on this blog; that space appears to be pretty well occupied at the moment. But a story posted today out of South Carolina referencing U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s recent announcement of support for that initiative caught our eye – since he seems to be drawing a connection to it and continued efforts to promote responsible energy exploration offshore.

Here’s how E&E News (subs. req’d) characterized his position on that today:

Graham said he is working with Kerry to expand offshore drilling and increase nuclear power to limit the nation’s reliance on foreign oil. He said making compromises on capping greenhouse gases was a worthwhile trade-off to get the bill through the Senate.

Seems reasonable enough, right? Reach across the aisle and be willing to give a little to get a little so that decades-long federal bans preventing Americans from accessing their own energy are finally lifted. So what if you have to hold your nose and support an economy-wide cap on energy use – just so long as we can finally claim victory on an issue that has eluded the American public for the better part of 30 years. Right?

There’s only one problem with that strain of analysis: The bans are gone. The moratoria have been lifted. The American people saw to that themselves, rising up last summer to demand of their Congress an end to the blockade of American energy offshore.

So: Not to put too fine a point on this, but if Sen. Graham is as interested in offshore energy exploration as he’s letting on, shouldn’t someone pull him aside and explain that he doesn’t need to support cap-and-trade to get us further along offshore? Explain that we don’t actually need new legislation. Explain that his efforts would be much better directed by sending Interior secretary Ken Salazar a letter? Explain that if Interior were doing its job, we could be out there today trying to do what we can to deliver a better energy future for tomorrow?

UPDATE: Well, at least the senator’s messaging on all this seems to be a lot better off than his policy justification. Responding to a recent round of radio ads posted by the American Energy Alliance in his state taking him to the mat over his cap-and-trade flip, it looks as if Sen. Graham’s people are trying to accentuate the positive:

[Sen. Graham’s] office released a statement Thursday that focused on the Senator’s support for nuclear energy and offshore drilling but made no mention of cap-and-trade.

“Energy independence will be a 21st Century job creator in South Carolina,” Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop said. “Few states would benefit more from energy independence than South Carolina.”

He’s right – South Carolina is uniquely positioned to do for the East Coast what Alaska has been doing for the West Coast for 35 years: Fuel, power and light its economy. How any of that relates to cap-and-trade, though, is anyone’s guess.

UPDATE II: Looks like American Energy Alliance is upping the ante a bit on Sen. Graham, releasing a Halloween-themed television ad on top of the radio spots to run statewide in South Carolina.