9th Circuit gives final approval to Shell exploration plan
Tim Bradner, Alaska Journal of CommerceA federal appeals court upheld the government’s approval of an exploration plan filed by Shell to explore its outer continental shelf leases in the Arctic in 2012.
The unanimous May 25 decision was by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society and two Alaskan Inupiat groups had appealed the approval of the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea drilling plans given by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management last August.
The challengers had claimed that Shell’s proposal for a well-capping stack and containment system in the event of an oil spill was incomplete and that it had failed to fully inform the government about its oil spill response plan.