WASHINGTON — The United States may use its role heading the Arctic Council to push for standards governing oil drilling and development throughout the region, the Obama administration’s top Arctic envoy said Tuesday.
Retired Adm. Robert Papp Jr., who became the first U.S. special representative for the Arctic in July, said forthcoming Interior Department regulations governing Arctic drilling could be a model for other nations seeking to tap the region’s potential oil and gas riches.
“Clearly, we need to get our act in order” before seeking a multilateral agreement or a “voluntary adaption of standards,” Papp told reporters on the sidelines of a Center for Strategic and International Studies event examining Arctic issues. But, he said, regulators at the Interior Department have developed “a sound proposal” to govern Arctic oil exploration.
That draft measure is now in the middle of an interagency review at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. While major details are under wraps, the proposal is expected to require oil companies working in the Arctic to have immediate access to emergency equipment, including rigs to bore relief wells and systems that can contain and cap runaway wells.
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Melting sea ice at the top of the globe has given energy companies new access to once-impassible Arctic waters and the potential 412 billion barrels of oil equivalent estimated to be lurking in the region.
“We all recognize the Arctic is changing from a solid expanse of inaccessible ice fields into a growing, navigable sea, attracting increased human activity,” Papp said at the CSIS forum. “The economic promise of oil and gas in the Arctic is increasingly attractive as retreating sea ice and improvements in drilling technology make offshore exploration and production more economically feasible than before.”
But it is not without risk, as illustrated by a series of mishaps during Shell’s 2012 Arctic drilling operations. Most of the headline-grabbing incidents — including a drillship that dragged its anchor and the grounding of Shell’s floating Kulluk drilling unit — happened far from the Chukchi and Beaufort seas where the company was searching for oil.
Read more: Shell navigates obstacles in Arctic drilling
Papp, a 39-year veteran of the Coast Guard who steered some of the government’s response to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, said Shell’s problems were “indicative of the harsh environment that we have up there.”
“I learned back in those early days when I was a young sailor up in the Arctic, it’s the worst weather I ever experienced in all my career of going to sea on a sustained basis,” Papp told reporters. “Storms that we call hurricanes on the East Coast are sometimes day-to-day normal weather up in the Arctic.”
“So you have to be prepared for that, whether you’re drilling for oil or you’re transporting cargo or going fishing,” Papp added. “I just don’t think a lot of people have an appreciation for that.”
Raising awareness about the challenges of operating in the Arctic environment is one of Papp’s goals during the United States’ two-year stint heading the eight-member Arctic Council, a role it takes over next year.
The U.S. Arctic — which includes the Beaufort and Chukchi seas north of Alaska — is supported by limited infrastructure, with the most significant port 1,000 miles away, sparse communication systems and outdated navigation charts.
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Papp said the United States’ priorities during its two-year stint as chair will include ocean governance and stewardship, adapting to climate change and the economic wellbeing of the people who live in the region.
David Hayes, a former deputy secretary of the Interior, said baseline safety standards for oil and gas activity should be part of the United States’ agenda and can build on an existing multilateral agreement for Arctic spill response and prevention.
A single regulatory scheme is unlikely because of big differences in the way Arctic nations oversee oil development as well as the weather and geological conditions in different areas of the Arctic.
But, Hayes said, “the U.S. has a potential to push forward some basic understandings among Arctic nations about expectations for oil and gas safety.”
The sweet spot for such an agreement could be something that lays out basic principles for oil and gas drilling, such as having capping stacks and “on-scene capability to scarf up spilled oil” on hand in case of an emergency, Hayes said.
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Papp suggested the Arctic Council will take a more aggressive role pushing action on climate change under the United States’ watch.
“The Arctic Council has been great in coming together for agreements; what we would like to see during the U.S. chairmanship is more actionable items that we can set as goals and you can clearly identify as accomplishments and progress going forward,” Papp said. That “is not to disparage anything that has gone on; this has been a wonderful council and it has done great things. I just think it’s time now to become a more active and forward-leaning council.”
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