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energy policy, fossil fuels, national ocean politics, natural resource management, offshore oil, tar sands

Hamptonroads.com: Weighing the risks of offshore drills

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http://hamptonroads.com/2013/06/weighing-risks-offshore-drills

I am disappointed in the local NAACP for endorsing drilling in Virginia. DV

The Virginian-Pilot
© June 22, 2013

First of two parts

Under current rules, drilling for oil and gas off Virginia’s coast is a terrible idea:
– Much of the federal territory on the outer continental shelf directly off our shore actually belongs to Maryland and North Carolina for royalty purposes.
– There’s no system in place to provide revenue to any Atlantic state to help compensate for the significant risk the industry brings.
– The oil and gas business has done far too little to improve its safety record, despite major spills that caused massive damage to industries dependent on clean water.

That leaves only a few justifications – primarily jobs and energy – for the continued pursuit of platforms. Thanks to fracking, America is already awash with cheap natural gas, which previous surveys have indicated may lie off Virginia’s coast. And while offshore drilling might well create jobs in Hampton Roads, they’ll come by risking current jobs, including in the military and in tourism.
N
evertheless, political leaders, from Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms to Gov. Bob McDonnell, have embraced offshore drilling as a potential economic boon for our region, even without changes to the federal framework. But that would mean the oil and gas industry is willing to improve life in Hampton Roads out of the goodness of its heart and in defiance of its past performance in places like Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Just a few petroleum-stained legislators would even dare to make such an argument, which is why legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell and U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine – and supported by McDonnell and Sessoms – seeks to fix two of the three major shortcomings of the current federal regime: The map and the royalties.

The last one – the inherent danger in drilling – still presents a real and unacceptable threat to Virginia’s military installations, its tourism industry and environment. It’s also the one over which the lawmakers have the least control.
Drilling off Virginia’s Atlantic coast remains barred by the White House in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The legislation now in the works would force the White House to lift that ban and release territory covered in “Lease Sale 220.”

Past exploration has suggested that there may be natural gas in Virginia’s outer continental shelf territory, though nobody admits to knowing for sure. That’s part of the reason a new survey is under way. Despite that uncertainty, both before Deepwater Horizon and after, Virginia’s delegation to Washington and lawmakers in Richmond have pushed to lift the barriers to drilling.

The oil and gas industry has made a huge political bet on Virginia. Even if there’s nothing there, energy companies see freedom to drill off the commonwealth as a first step toward creating momentum for platforms from Maine to Florida.
Support for drilling isn’t limited to politicians and fossil fuel interests. Last week, Virginia Beach’s chapter of the NAACP endorsed Rigell’s bill, citing the potential for jobs. “Given the unemployment rate, especially that of African Americans here in Virginia Beach and the region, we are encouraged that you are taking proactive steps toward increasing employment opportunities in this part of the commonwealth,” local President Carl Wright wrote to the congressman.

Rigell has said offshore energy production would diversify the region’s defense-dependent economy and create 18,000 jobs. What’s far less clear is how many jobs it would imperil. For the military, to which 47 percent of the region’s economy is tied, oil and gas development in Lease Sale 220 has long presented an unacceptable risk to training and operations. For that reason, the Pentagon has opposed opening most of Virginia’s coast to drilling. More on that Sunday.

To fix the problem with the map of offshore territory – Virginia’s share resembles a slim slice of pie – both the House and Senate bills would draw state boundaries differently, essentially extending Virginia’s border lines straight out to sea.
While the resulting map would greatly expand the federal territory assigned to Virginia (and presumably the amount of royalties that could flow to the commonwealth), Maryland and North Carolina would lose that territory and resulting revenue. In addition, the bill would require the rest of the nation to surrender money. Right now, there is no royalty structure for oil found off the Atlantic Coast.

The proposal would expand the royalty scheme in the Gulf of Mexico – where states get 37.5 percent of revenue from new drilling – to the Atlantic coast. Those royalties and revenues, which amount to billions of dollars, now go to the Treasury and from there to other states. Perhaps Rigell, Warner and Kaine can persuade enough other congressional delegations to forgo such a big revenue stream. Perhaps they can persuade Maryland and North Carolina (where some lawmakers also want to drill) to cede valuable offshore territory in exchange for nothing. They still can’t make an inherently risky enterprise safer, for the environment or for tourism, the second-largest economic sector in Hampton Roads.

The oil and gas industry has made some recent progress toward improving safety. But those meager efforts, combined with the industry’s poor environmental record and the still-incomplete accounting of how much oil and gas is off our shore, provide good reason to avoid betting Hampton Roads’ future. If Virginia is going to seriously consider drilling, the benefits must substantially outweigh the significant risks.
So far, it’s clear they don’t.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, marine pollution, ocean pollution, offshore oil

Times-Picayune: BP, Coast Guard criticized for trying to downgrade oil spill clean-up efforts

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http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/06/coastal_authority_criticizes_b.html#incart_m-rpt-2

Nola.com

tar mats 2

Tar mats photographed on the beach at Elmer’s Island in September 2012, a few days after Hurricane Isaac. State officials say they are concerned more oil from the BP spill could surface after tropical storms this year. (Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority)
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By Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
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on June 19, 2013 at 11:25 PM, updated June 19, 2013 at 11:26 PM

The state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority used its monthly meeting in Baton Rouge on Wednesday as a bully pulpit to criticize BP and the U.S. Coast Guard for their attempts to downgrade the continued clean-up of oiled wetlands and shoreline areas in Louisiana, in the wake of the 2010 Gulf oil spill triggered by the fatal explosion on the Macondo well.

The authority also criticized the Army Corps of Engineers for the agency’s attempts to turn over to state control completed segments of the post-Katrina New Orleans area levee system before the entire east and west bank system is determined to be complete.

The complaints about BP and the Coast Guard come a week after the company and federal agency announced that they’ve ended official “response” actions involving oil sightings in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

The public complaints are in part an effort to forestall a similar move in Louisiana, which authority Chairman Garret Graves said BP has been demanding and the Coast Guard has been threatening to do.

Coast Guard officials have repeatedly denied that they will end official clean-up efforts in Louisiana until it’s clear that contaminated shorelines are clean or that further cleanup would be more detrimental than leaving the remaining oil in place.

Drue Banta Winters, a lawyer who handles BP environmental response issues for Gov. Bobby Jindal, told the authority Wednesday that oil contamination continues to be found in patches along 200 miles of the state’s shoreline.

In April and May, 2.2 million pounds of oily material in Louisiana were collected, compared with 4,112 pounds in the other three states, she said.
A spokesman for BP said the company’s contractors continue to remove oily material from the state’s coastal area.

“We continue to make significant progress in Louisiana where most of our active cleanup activities in 2013 have focused on the barrier islands,” said BP spokesman Jason Ryan. “Over the past 6 months we have drilled over 14,000 auger holes and found that about 3 percent of the locations required any clean-up. Recovery of the material is nearly complete.

“In the marshes, the highest concentrations of oil were found primarily in Upper Barataria Bay and Middle Ground Shoal,” he said. “In Upper Barataria Bay, we have completed active cleanup and are now progressing the segments through the final inspection process.

“At Middle Ground Shoal, the area with the most remaining oiling is about a half-acre in size and includes both MC252 and non-MC252 oil,” Ryan said. BP’s Macondo well also is known as Mississippi Canyon 252, or MC252 for short.

“The Coast Guard has determined that intensive manual and mechanical treatment could do more harm than good. The (federal on-scene coordinator) is considering treatment options, including allowing this small, remote area to recover naturally,” he said. “Our operations in Louisiana will continue until the Coast Guard determines that active cleanup is complete.”

Graves said the state also is upset that the Coast Guard and BP have refused to commit to establishing a plan to inspect Louisiana beaches and wetlands for oil in the aftermath of a tropical storm or hurricane.

When Hurricane Isaac hit Louisiana last August, its storm surges and waves unearthed large quantities of oily material that had been buried beneath the sand along Grand Terre, Grand Isle, Fourchon Beach and Elmer’s Island, and oozing oil was discovered in other wetlands. Within days of the storm, BP contractors were collecting the material, a task that has continued into this year.

In public statements, BP and Coast Guard officials have said they will respond to any apparent resurfacing of oil, and have urged the public to report sightings to the Coast Guard’s National Response Center.

The criticism of the corps surfaced during a briefing by authority executive director Jerome Zeringue on the status of levees for the 2013 hurricane season, which extends through Nov. 30.

The corps has agreed to not turn over several major structures to the state, which would mean the state would be responsible for operating and maintaining them. While the state is the official local sponsor for the projects, the actual operation and maintenance would be done by local levee districts, acting under the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East and -West.

The structures include the storm surge barrier wall along Lake Borgne, which includes a navigation gate for ships and barges at the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in eastern New Orleans and a smaller navigation gate for fishing vessels on Bayou Bienvenue; a storm surge gate at the Seabrook entrance of the Industrial Canal from Lake Pontchartrain; and the West Closure Complex on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway on the West Bank, south of the confluence of the Harvey and Algiers canals.

The state and flood protection authority want the corps to operate the navigation gates at Seabrook and on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at the Lake Borgne barrier. Legislation pending before Congress would give the corps the responsibility of running only the Lake Borgne GIWW navigation gate.

Operation of the various gates – and operation and maintenance, including grass cutting and levee lifts, along the levees – will cost millions of dollars a year.

Graves said the state has repeatedly demanded that the entire levee system should undergo a comprehensive review before the state accepts authority for it. He said the corps’ attempts to send letters to the state and local levee districts indicating individual segments of the system are being turned over conflict with that plan.

Graves said the state is concerned about a variety of issues that state officials have raised about the design of some parts of the system, including the corps decision to allow contractors to use thicker sheet piling instead of coating the pilings with a material that would resist rust.

An independent peer review that the corps promised concerning the use of the thicker sheet pilings instead of the coatings has never been completed, Graves said.

Also awaiting test results is a decision by the corps on how to “armor” earthen levee segments to assure that storm surge doesn’t cause erosion. Tests on an East Bank levee in St. Charles Parish and a West Bank levee in Jefferson Parish of a fabric material through which grass grows is not yet complete.

_______________

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, Gulf restoration, marine mammals, offshore oil

E&E: OFFSHORE DRILLING: Landmark settlement aims to protect Gulf whales and dolphins

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Jeremy P. Jacobs, E&E reporters
Published: Friday, June 21, 2013

Conservation groups, the Interior Department and oil and gas representatives yesterday reached a landmark settlement that will place restrictions on the use of seismic surveys to protect vulnerable populations of whales and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.

The settlement focuses on the use of high-intensity air guns, which fire air into the water every 10 to 12 seconds for weeks and months at a time. The technology is critical to prospecting in the Gulf of Mexico for new places to drill.

Advocates including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and Gulf Restoration Network allege that the blasts — which are sometimes as intense as dynamite — threaten bottlenose dolphins and sperm whales, both of which have experienced die-offs since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

“Today’s agreement is a landmark for marine mammal protection in the Gulf,” said Michael Jasny of NRDC. “For years this problem has languished, even as the threat posed by the industry’s widespread, disruptive activity has become clearer and clearer.”

The environmental groups filed their lawsuit in 2010 in a Louisiana federal court. They claimed that the blasts disrupted the whales, dolphins and other ocean species that rely on sound to feed, mate and navigate, though industry groups strongly dispute that characterization.

The environmentalists claimed that Interior violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act when it permitted the use of air guns without preparing an environmental impact statement.

Several industry groups, however, pushed back on the lawsuit and NRDC’s claims. Moreover, Chip Gill, president of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, classified the settlement as a “huge victory” because his members were already implementing many of its terms.

The lawsuit, he said, contained “numerous outlandish and unsubstantiated allegations. The environmental groups can’t prove them, so they are settling.”

Gill said a worst-case scenario would have been for the court to throw out Interior’s 2004 National Environmental Policy Act review. If that happened, permits could have been revoked or a hold could have been placed on future permits. None of that is part of yesterday’s settlement, he said.

Sperm whales and bottlenose dolphins have experienced significant and unexplained die-offs in the Gulf of Mexico since the 2010 spill. Environmentalists have sought to point the finger at the spill, but government scientists are continuing to study the cause, and the air guns are seen as a confounding variable in solving the problem.

The settlement prohibits the use of air guns in biologically important areas, such as the DeSoto Canyon, which is particularly important to endangered sperm whales. The canyon is also critical to Bryde’s whales.

Under the agreement, industry also may not use air guns along coastal areas during the main calving season of bottlenose dolphins between March 1 and April 30, and the settlement requires a minimum separation distance between surveys.

Additionally, the settlement, which still must be approved by the court, requires the use of listening devices to make sure the air guns aren’t disrupting marine mammals.

“The settlement not only secures new protections for whales and dolphins harmed by deafening air guns but also establishes a process for investigating alternatives to air gun surveys,” said Ellen Medlin of the Sierra Club, referring to a mandated Bureau of Ocean Energy Management report on new standards and multiyear research project to be developed on an less harmful alternative.

“As a result,” Medlin said, “the settlement not only delivers immediate benefits for Gulf marine mammals, but also takes the first step towards a long-term solution.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

climate change, fossil fuels, marine pollution, ocean pollution, offshore oil

Louisiana Weekly: Terrebonne tribe struggles to preserve its way of life

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Terrebonne tribe struggles to preserve its way of life

I hope the Corps of Engineers uses their resources to help these native tribes remain on traditional lands but it may be inevitable that they move further inland as others have had to do. Coastal erosion in this area has been rampant for wayyyyyyyy tooooo long due to the loss of marshlands from offshore oil activities. DV

17th June 2013

By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer

Theresa Dardar, a member of the Pointe-au-Chien tribe in Terrebonne Parish, is down to the last bag of shrimp she froze in late April 2010 after the BP spill. The state opened the shrimp season early that spring before oil began lapping at the coast. Her husband Donald, a commercial fishermen, hauled in all he could that April and May. The Dardars have worked through their frozen supplies and aren’t sure they trust fresh shrimp-something that’s always been a staple of their diet.

Pointe au Chien, 20 miles southeast of Houma on Lake Chien, is a close-knit Native American community that was hurt by the spill and a string of hurricanes. Last week, Dardar said the area’s shrimp catch is declining, some of the local fish look diseased and oiled marshes are rapidly eroding.

Residents include 68 families from the Pointe-au-Chien tribe, along with some Cajuns. “People here work mainly as commercial fishermen and a few are tugboat captains,” Dardar said. She’s a board member of GO FISH, a south Louisiana advocacy group formed after the spill. Her husband Donald is second chairman of the Pointe-au-Chien tribe.

The Dardars are distressed by what they’ve seen trawling “Last year, my brother-in-law caught a fish that didn’t have scales and threw it back,” she said. “Then my husband pulled in what we call a triple tail, and it didn’t have scales. Last summer, my husband’s uncle started to prepare a drum fish he caught but saw it had hardly any meat.”

Shrimp season opened May 13 and the catch is down for the second year in a row. “This May, my brother caught a fish that had a tumor on it when he was shrimping,” Dardar said. Her brother-in-law reeled in a puppy drum with lesions. She discussed her concerns with Louisiana State University AgCenter. “I have the puppy drum in my freezer, and LSU has agreed to pick it up for lab inspection,” she said last week. “I’m worried the lesions could be some form of cancer.”

Dardar suspects BP oil and dispersants have taken a toll on seafood. “Tests were done on our seafood in 2010 and the results weren’t good,” she said last week. “Dillard University found heavy metals in our shrimp, and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade detected cadmium in our oysters.” She wants to know whether the local catch is safe. “We want seafood in this area tested further,” she said. “And I hope the authorities will tell us the results.”

In mid-October 2010, Dillard chemistry professor Edwin Agwaramgbo, in conjunction with the Treme-based People’s Environmental Center, sampled soil, water and seafood at Pointe au Chien. They found high levels of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons in water-bed sediments. Shrimp were full of arsenic and oysters were loaded with zinc. They found high levels of copper in the Pointe’s shrimp, oysters and snails.

Oysters collected at Pointe au Chien in August 2010, and tested by Pace Analytical Service in Wisconsin in December 2010 for the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, contained amounts of cadmium that greatly exceeded federal standards. Last week, Anne Rolfes, president of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade said LABB paid for that sampling at the request of the Pointe-au-Chien community. In large doses, cadmium is a human carcinogen.

Three years after the spill, all federal waters and most state waters have reopened for fishing. Federal and state officials continue to collect and test Gulf seafood. Tests show seafood in reopened areas is as safe to eat as it was before the spill, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Last week, Louisiana Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries spokeswoman Laura Wooderson said “we’re doing extensive testing along the coast.” But she provided no details about findings.

Dardar and her husband, along with her brother-in-law and sister-in-law next door, are shying away from fish and shrimp now. “Other people in this community are eating seafood since the feds and state say it’s safe,” Dardar said. “And that worries me. I’m more concerned about how children might be affected by bad seafood than I am about my husband and me since we’re getting on in years.”

Bigger fish are eating smaller fish, and “the problems are just going up the food chain,” she said.

Dardar said oil remains in the Gulf and the bayous. “After shrimp season started this year, my brother-in-law and his cousin caught some tarballs,” she said. “Last year, my husband’s cousin caught a big block of oil that may have broken away from an underwater mat.”

Land at Pointe au Chien has eroded more quickly since the spill. “Oil in the bayou is killing the marsh grass,” Dardar said. “Once the grass is gone, there’s nothing to hold the dirt together.”

Dardar wants to see more attention to land loss. “A year ago, we asked Terrebonne Parish to install rif-raf to stop land erosion near a tree in our community,” she said. Rif-raf or broken cement is sometimes used to shore up land. “The parish told us they’d do it, but never did, and now the tree is dead in the water and thirty feet from land.”

Dardar said the area is known for its trees. Traditionally, it was called Pointe aux Chennes, meaning “point of the oaks.” Today, it’s name is sometimes translated as “point of the dog.”

Barrier islands near Pointe au Chien are rapidly disappearing. “We want to see our barrier islands rebuilt,” Dardar said. “In the past, they slowed incoming water and protected us. We’ve just about lost Timbalier, Whiskey and Last Islands, leaving us much more vulnerable to storms. Lower Pointe au Chien, where I live, gets water. And in recent storms that water has spread to Upper Pointe au Chien, which didn’t used to flood.”

The Dardars live ten feet above ground in a house they built with insurance money after Hurricane Juan damaged their mobile home in 1985. Lower Pointe au Chien residents need to be up high. “We had three feet of water in our yard two years ago from Tropical Storm Lee and then another three feet from Hurricane Isaac last August,” Dardar said. “That’s more than we used to flood.”

Dardar likes some of what she’s seen in the state’s 50-year Coastal Master Plan, approved by the legislature last year. “In the last community meeting I attended on the plan, Whiskey Island was going to be saved,” she said. “And I’ve been assured that the Morganza to the Gulf project will include Pointe au Chien. Depending on when it’s built, that project could protect us.”

Morganza to the Gulf is a planned, $10.3 billion system of levees and floodgates that will be funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state and local levee districts to protect Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes from storms. The state and the parishes are building parts of the levee system now but the fed’s contribution still has to be approved. When those levees are finished, thousands of residents outside of them might be encouraged to relocate, according to planners.

Dardar said her neighboring community, Isle of Jean Charles, has been left out of the Morganza to the Gulf plan.

“We have a few, old levees here now,” she said. “But they’re not really hurricane protection. The one behind our house is eight feet high and was built after Hurricane Juan.”

Dardar said her tribe’s burial grounds lie below Pointe au Chien and aren’t included in the Morganza to the Gulf project. “We have four or five different cemeteries named after tribal leaders, and we visit them by boat,” she said. “One of our ancestral mounds is already starting to wash away.”

She explained why her tribe and other Native Americans live deep in the bayous by the Gulf. “Our ancestors were chased down here centuries ago,” she said. “Andrew Jackson said he wanted every Indian killed and our people made their way down into the boondocks.” Jackson oversaw anti-Indian campaigns before and during his two terms in the White House from 1829 to 1837.

In addition to the Pointe-au-Chien, tribes in south Louisiana include the Bayou Lafourche, Grand Caillou/Dulac and Isle de Jean Charles bands of the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees, or the BCCM.

The Pointe-au-Chien tribe adapted to its watery circumstances long ago. “Everyone comes back after a big storm here,” Dardar said. “No one has left except for some young people who got married. Our elders don’t want to move. No one I talk with wants to leave.”

But Isle of Jean Charles has considered moving somewhere else, Dardar said. “Communities in Alaska are trying to do that,” she noted. A number of Eskimo villages, threatened by melting ice as the climate warms, are considering new sites. Waves of climate refugees, moving to safer locales, are expected in the United States this decade.

This article originally published in the June 17, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, marine pollution, offshore oil

Globe and Mail: Canada raises liability for offshore oil spills to $1-billion

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canada-raises-liability-for-offshore-oil-spills-to-1-billion/article12647765/

SHAWN MCCARTHY – GLOBAL ENERGY REPORTER
OTTAWA – The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Jun. 18 2013, 3:29 PM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Jun. 18 2013, 4:11 PM EDT

The federal government will raise the bar for oil companies operating off the East Coast and in the Arctic, increasing the limit on their liability for environmental and other damage from a blowout or oil spill to $1-billion.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said the $1-billion cap – up from $30-million in the Atlantic and $40-million in the Arctic – is part of the government’s “polluter pays” approach to resource development. But environmental groups complain it could still leave taxpayers on the hook for massive costs, noting the cleanup from BP PLC’s Gulf of Mexico spill has cost more than $40-billion.

To implement the proposed changes, Ottawa will have to amend different acts that govern offshore oil and gas development off Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and off Canada’s northern coast. It will also strengthen the ability of governments to get compensation in the event of spills, and for regulators to impose fines.

“Canada is taking steps today to improve its robust offshore regime and make it even stronger,” the minister told a news conference in Halifax, where he was joined by Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter. “As I’ve said many times, our government will ensure that development will not proceed unless it is safe for Canadians and safe for the environment.

Last week, Mr. Oliver announced a similar plan to increase liability limits for nuclear operators, though again critics said the caps are far short of the expected cost of a major accident.

The government’s announcement comes as Enbridge Inc. is pushing back against the national energy regulator’s demand to have nearly $1-billion in liability coverage set aside for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project. Enbridge instead is calling for an industry-financed fund that would cover cleanup costs resulting from a “catastrophic oil release” from a pipeline.

The government’s proposed $1-billion cap for offshore drilling would apply to “no fault” liability, while operators would continue to face unlimited liability should they be found to be at fault or negligent. Companies will also be required for the first time to demonstrate to the regulators their financial capacity to cover $1-billion in cleanup costs should it become necessary.

“In the event of an oil spill off the coast of Canada, it’s going to be very costly to the taxpayers of Canada,” said Pierre Sadik, manager of legislative affairs for EcoJustice, an environmental advocacy group.

Mr. Sadik added that it can be difficult for governments to collect compensation when they have to prove fault or negligence in an oil spill, as is the case with unlimited liability.

At the same time, a blowout in Canadian waters could be extremely damaging and expensive to contain, given the harsh conditions, the remoteness of operations and the lack of the kind of equipment that was readily available to BP as it sought to battle the Macondo blowout in 2009.

Oceans North Canada researcher Chris Debicki said the proposal is “a step in the right direction,” and will highlight the risks of drilling in the Arctic. “But it’s impossible to put an economic figure on ecosystem destruction,” said Mr. Debicki, whose group is part of the Pew Charitable Trust.

The offshore oil industry has long been expecting the increased liability, and can work within it though it may affect smaller companies that want to explore in shallow waters, said Paul Barnes, manager for Atlantic Canada for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

“It’s something that we had been anticipating and we are seeing governments around the world undertake similar initiatives to modernize and make improvements to their regulatory regime, especially in light of disasters that have occurred in recent times,” Mr. Barnes said. “There is nothing in it that really concerns us.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter