A major report on the prospect of offshore drilling in the Arctic by the Center for American Progress concludes that the oil industry is not prepared to prevent disaster to this remote and fragile region. The Obama administration’s offshore drilling oversight agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, has approved Royal Dutch Shell’s plan to begin exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea beginning in the summer of 2012, pending approval by other agencies.

In “Putting a Freeze on Arctic Ocean Drilling: America’s Inability to Respond to an Oil Spill in the Arctic,” the authors, Kiley Kroh, Michael Conathan, and Emma Huvos, investigate the prospect of drilling in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth, and find the preparations by the oil and gas industry, federal agencies, and Congress are inadequate, overstretched, and untested:

This report outlines the specific shortcomings in both Shell’s response plans and the private- and public-sector response capabilities to a devastating oil spill in the Arctic region of the United States. Failing to meet the targets laid out here will expose the residents and natural resources of one of the last unspoiled places on the planet to an unacceptable level of risk. Until the oil and gas industry and its federal partners can demonstrate with certainty that they can identify and respond to a true worst-case scenario incident, the Arctic should remain off-limits to exploration and drilling.

In one telling example of dangerous shortcuts in the rush to drilling, Shell’s spill response plan describes a “worst-case scenario” of a spill happening in the relatively warm month of August, although it submitted plans to drill into the drastically harsher month of October.

The report also contrasts the very limited infrastructure for oil spill response in Alaska to the robust infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico (which was still unable to prevent serious harm from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster).

In October, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrator Jane Lubchenco told ThinkProgress Green that the implications of accelerating climate change by drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic has “huge implications for the global system.” Although NOAA is the nation’s top oceanographic agency, its scientists play only a minor, advisory role in the government’s approval of offshore drilling, which is run by the Interior Department. NOAA plays a larger role in cleaning up after oil spills.

Below is the summary of CAP’s recommendations for what needs to happen before offshore Arctic drilling should proceed: Read more

In his State of the Union address, President Obama announced he would push forward with new offshore drilling — which includes the pristine waters of the Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, and Cook Inlet off Alaska’s coast. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) wrote a report in June 2011 that described dozens of areas that required further scientific research before taking the risks of disrupting the unique ecosystems on behalf of the oil industry. Now, nearly 600 scientists from around the world have signed an open letter urging President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to base Arctic drilling decisions on science, not politics:

We, the undersigned 573 research scientists, call upon the Administration to follow through on its commitment to science by acting on the USGS recommendations. Doing so prior to authorizing new oil and gas activity in the Arctic Ocean will respect the national significance of the environment and cultures of U.S. Arctic waters and demonstrate the value that your Administration places on having a sound scientific basis for managing industrial development of the Outer Continental Shelf.

“Already stressed by rapidly melting summer ice, the whales, walrus, ice seals, polar bears, and other wildlife in these waters are especially vulnerable to oil spills and industrial activity,” the Pew Environment Group and the Ocean Conservancy explain in a full-page ad they will run in the New York Times and Politico highlighting the letter.

Drilling for fossil fuels in a melting Arctic would accelerate the potentially catastrophic destabilization of the planet’s thermostat. As National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco told ThinkProgress Green, “We don’t fully understand what the consequences of that are going to be.”

An upcoming report from the Center for American progress, due to be released later this month, will examine in greater detail America’s deficiencies in regard to Arctic infrastructure and oil spill response preparedness, and suggest steps to be taken before activities, such as drilling, commence in the world’s last unspoiled frontier.

Since Florida suffered more than $1 billion in loss from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, offshore drilling has been a controversial subject for the state. Rick Santorum was asked last night at the NBC debate why those few thousand drilling jobs are worth the millions of jobs and billions of dollars at risk in the tourism and recreation markets. Instead of answering, Santorum sidelined the question by attacking the president on the Keystone XL pipeline and arguing for more rigs, drilling, and pipelines:

Pipelines are the safe way, building those rigs, into our shores is the best way to create a good economy and a safer Florida.

Watch it:

But Santorum ignores that more than 1 million people are currently employed by Florida’s tourism economy and recreation contributes $67,595 million annually to the economy and generates 794,841 jobs in the South Atlantic region.

Santorum, however, says this industry is more threatened by high oil prices than by the risk of an oil spill. The question still remains for the GOP candidates why Florida should risk its beaches to save Americans mere pennies in gas prices.

Although China boasts of its green progress, the booming nation is also making major bets on North and South American tar sands, one of the most carbon-intensive fuels on the planet. This play for civilization-threatening energy comes even as the world’s nations jockey over the fragile international climate accords in Durban, South Africa:

On Monday, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) closed its acquisition of bankrupt Canadian tar sands producer OPTI Canada Inc. CNOOC gets OPTI’s 35 percent working interest in Long Lake and three other project areas located in the Athabasca region of northeastern Alberta, split with Canadian operator Nexen Inc. The deal cost $34 million for OPTI stock and $2 billion in debt. [Reuters]

On Wednesday, CNOOC and Nexen formed a joint venture, giving CNOOC a 20 percent working interest in the Kakuna, Angel Fire, and Cypress deepwater exploration wells in the Gulf of Mexico. [BusinessWeek]

These dirty investments in North American fossil fuel projects are just the latest in a rapid string of deals to give China access to high-polluting carbon energy from the Americas. Over the last three years, China-owned companies have invested over $18 billion in tar sands, shale gas, and coal projects in Canada and Venezuela:

November, 2011: China signs a $6 billion deal with Venezuela to develop tar sands — $4 billion to the Chinese-Venezuelan tar sands company Sinovensa to increase production from 118,000 barrels a day to 1.1 million barrels a day in 2014, and $2 billion to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela for refining projects, drills, and equipment. [Channel News Asia]

October, 2011: Sinopec spends $2.2 billion to acquire shale gas producer Daylight Energy, which controls 300,000 acres of oil and gas property, at a 70 percent premium. [Bloomberg]

May, 2010: China Investment Corporation spends $1.25 billion on Alberta tar sands — $817 million for a 45 percent stake in the Peace River tar sands project owned by Penn West Energy Trust, and $435 million for a 5 percent interest in the company. [Penn West Energy]

April, 2010: Sinopec spends $4.65 billion to buy ConocoPhillips’ 9 percent stake in tar sands producer Syncrude Canada. [New York Times]

February, 2010: PetroChina spends $1.73 billion to purchase 60 percent of AOSC’s MacKay River and Dover tar sands projects. [CRI]

July, 2009: China Investment Corporation spends $1.5 billion to purchase 17 percent of Teck Resources, Canada’s largest metallurgical coal and copper mining company. CIC was recently granted a seat on Teck’s board of directors. [China Daily]

In 2005, PetroChina and Enbridge signed a $2 billion deal to help the Canadian tar sands company develop the Northern Gateway Pipeline, a project intended to deliver 400,000 barrels of tar crude a day from Edmonton, Alberta to the British Columbia port town of Kitimat, giving China access to direct tar sands shipping.

The pipeline has been unbuilt for years, facing stiff opposition and economic challenges. This Friday, Gitxsan First Nation announced it would become “the first aboriginal partner” for the pipeline. On Thursday, 130 native groups in Western Canada pledged to block the project. Enbridge has offered up to a 10 percent stake in the pipeline to first nations who sign on.

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals will debate a proposal to jump start oil shale production, which could be one of the dirtiest forms of energy in existence if it were to become viable. Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn’s (R-CO) bill would codify midnight regulations on oil shale that the Bush administration passed just as it was leaving office in early 2009.

You’re not alone if you haven’t heard of oil shale, which should not be confused with the viable energy producer “shale oil.” In order to develop the oil shale, a type of rock, power plants must be built to heat the rock up to nearly 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and produce crude oil that still needs to be refined. This takes a large amount of energy and money, as well as 3-5 barrels of water per barrel of oil produced, a dangerous issue in the parched West.

Politicians and oil companies have extolled the virtue of this “new” form of energy since the early 1900s, yet not a single barrel of oil from oil shale has been commercially sold. That does not stop today’s politicians and oil CEOs from using the same language as their decades old predecessors. In a field hearing this summer, the Checks and Balances Project developed a bingo card with old-timey oil shale phrases — all of which but one were used. You can follow along today to see if the same arguments are used yet again (click on the card for a larger version).

Oil companies and proponents of oil shale claim it can “solve our energy crisis,” and Lamborn recently claimed that it is “one of America’s greatest natural resources.” Yet, despite decades of experimentation and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, oil shale has never been produced commercially in the United States. Even the director of the Center for Oil Shale Technology and Research admitted that:

All of the major companies are doing oil shale because they think it’s an interesting and high-potential area, but they’re not in a hurry to make it productive…

Oil companies already have research and development leases on public lands, but they now seeking even more public lands on which to experiment. Lamborn’s bill continues to reward dirty fossil fuel companies for chasing what some have called “the petroleum equivalent of fool’s gold.” Throughout his career, Lamborn has received $126,962 from the oil and gas industry.

On Wednesday, House Natural Resource Committee Republicans held their 20th oversight hearing on how to drill more. In addition to oil shale, todays legislative hearing will feature bills to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to mandate offshore oil and gas lease sales.