It’s still sinking in. Just one week ago, President Obama and Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell canceled all potential 2016 and 2017 lease sales that would have permitted oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean. What a long way we’ve come!
Sierra Club’s more than 2.4 million members and supporters thank the President and his Administration for this courageous decision. They have chosen to protect Arctic Ocean wildlife and communities and our climate -- two items that can never be replaced -- rather than bend to the will of Big Oil.
In fact, the Obama Administration went beyond just canceling the future lease sales as the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), an agency designed to regulate offshore drilling, denied Shell and Statoil’s requests that its leases be extended. This means that the current leases in the Arctic Ocean will expire in 2017 and 2020.
Canceling the 2016 and 2017 Arctic lease sales and denying Big Oil’s request to have its existing leases extended is bigger than the Arctic and Alaska. This announcement adds to President Obama’s unparallelled climate legacy, and furthers the emerging vision moving forward: we must leave dirty fuels where they belong -- in the ground -- to prevent further climate disruption and to preserve our country’s wild pristine places.