Philadelphia - To drill or not to drill seems to be a dramatic question for the President of the United States, Barack Obama, a liberal democrat who is both banning and supporting drilling operations in the United States.
On Sunday, January 24, the Obama Administration proposed new environmental protections on the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, a sensitive oil field of 12 million acres that the Alaska Government considers a key site for both energy security and economic revenues to Alaska.
The decision to extend a ban on the exploitation of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge was taken by the Obama Administration on the base of environmental issues to which President Obama is particularly committed, such as the preservation of sensitive lands and the cut of greenhouse emissions.
However, the Government of Alaska considers the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge an area of strategic development. In fact, Alaska gets the 90% of its state revenues from energy industries, and a bipartisan coalition within the Alaskan Congress of both republicans and democrats backs the opening up of new areas for oil and gas exploration.
The environmental restrictions imposed by the Obama Administration on the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge led the Chair of the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Lisa Murkowski, a republican Senator from Alaska, to a vocal opposition to the President.
In particular, Ms. Murkowski criticized the Obama Administration of opposing the interest of Alaska and urged the republican-led Congress to pass a bill to allow new drilling operations in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge and override any Presidential restriction in so doing.
The opposition of Senator Murkowski to President Obama is the last episode of a long struggle between Alaskan politicians and the Presidential Administration on energy and infrastructural issues.
On April 2013, the Obama Administration rejected the realization of a gravel emergency road through the Isembek National Wildlife Refuge, an infrastructure that Alaskan lawmakers had considered a priority for the Alaskan industry for years.
Alaskan lawmakers were also frustrated because of the opposition of the Obama Administration to the realization of a pipeline conceived to carry natural gas from Alaska's North Slope to the Mid West.
The Obama Administration made also clear its intention to veto a bill that authorizes the realization of Trans Canada's Keystone XL pipeline, which the Congress is likely to pass soon and send to Obama's desk for definitive approval.
Senator Murkowski, along with republicans and centrist democrats in the Congress, strongly supported the realization of the Keystone XL in order to pump Canadian crude sand oil from the Canadian state of Alberta to Texas refineries though Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Louisiana.
According to Ms. Murkowski and other pro-Keystone Congressmen, the Keystone XL will ensure the energy security of the United States, will strengthen political and energy ties with Canada, and will create job opportunities.
Ms. Murkowski also argued that the Keystone XL will help Alaska because it will carry the Canadian crude oil sand far from West Coast refineries, where the Alaska's oil actually goes.
Ms. Murkowski's pro-Keystone XL position was strongly criticized by the Chairman of the Alaskan Democratic Party, Mike Wenstrup, who censured Ms. Murkowski and the Alaskan Republican Party for lobbying the Canadian energy interest instead of the one of Alaska.
The United States to get ready to gas and oil export
The political confrontation between the Obama Administration and Senator Murkowski mirrors how tense the debate over energy issues in the United States is, in particular after a spectacular drop of the world price of oil has moved President Obama to go further with his pro-environmentalist attitude.
However, the Obama Administration demonstrated to be also attentive to the instances of those who urge President Obama to have a more assertive energy policy. On Tuesday, February 2, the Interior Department proposed an unprecedented opening of the water off the Atlantic Coast from Virginia to Georgia for oil and natural gas drilling.
On the one hand, the proposal will change a five-year strategy on energy policy issued by the Obama Administration to prohibit new drilling operations in both east and west coasts and to pose a moratorium on drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico after BP's April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.
On the other hand, the proposed authorization could allow the United States to exploit new oil and natural gas fields and increase the export of energy fuels from the United States to the world market in so doing.
Thanks to the exploitation of shale gas fields in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and elsewhere, the United States has increased its internal energy production.
Now, a positive pronouncement by the State and Energy Departments could finally allow the Obama Administration to liberalize the export of liquefied shale gas to the world market.
For the Obama Administration, the liberalization of shale gas export is an opportunity to both oppose the growing economic power of China in the Asia/Pacific region and help Europe to decrease dependence on natural gas supplies from Russia and Algeria as well.
Several allies to the United States all over the world, such as India, South Korea, Singapore and the United Kingdom, already reached pre-agreements to import liquefied shale gas from the United States.
Moreover, the European Union is likely to consider the guarantee of regular shale gas supplies from the United States as a core issue in the negotiations over the Trans Atlantic Trade and Industrial Partnership -TTIP- an agreement that President Obama is called to finalize by the end of his last mandate.
Matteo Cazzulani
Analyst of Trans Atlantic, Center Eastern European and energy issues
@MatteoCazzulani
