The lack of a comprehensive guidebook, combined with high staff turnover in recent years, potentially handicaps the US Minerals Management Service's Alaska regional office's efforts to adequately develop federal environmental assessments, the US Government Accountability Office said.
"Although [US Department of the Interior] policy directs its agencies to prepare handbooks providing guidance on how to implement [the National Environmental Policy Act], MMS lacks such a guidance handbook," it said in a report posted Apr. 7 on its web site.
The absence also has left unclear MMS's policy on what constitutes a significant environmental impact, GAO said, adding, "Furthermore, guidance is also lacking for conducting and documenting NEPA-required analyses to address environmental and cultural sensitivities, which have often been the topic of litigation over Alaskan offshore oil and gas development."
The report noted that in addition to being sued, MMS has been subjected to allegations by some of its former scientists that their work on environmental issues was suppressed or altered. "GAO also found that the Alaska OCS region shares information selectively," it continued. "This practice is inconsistent with agency policy, which directs that information, including proprietary data from industry, be shared with all staff involved in environmental reviews."
Alaska MMS employees have noted that this practice has hindered their ability to complete sound environmental analyses under NEPA, GAO said.
The report confirmed what many environmental and Alaska Native interests have been saying for years, according to Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League. "Good decision-making requires solid information, and that has been missing from the Alaska MMS decision-making for some time," she said on Apr. 7. "Now it turns out that MMS intentionally kept key information from its own experts. This is outrageous."
Implementing advice
An MMS spokesman said the agency is taking steps to implement GAO's recommendations. "The frontier areas offshore Alaska need additional exploration and scientific, environmental, and spill risk analysis before additional areas are offered for leasing," he told OGJ Apr. 9 via e-mail. "It is therefore extremely important that the MMS's Alaska region staff have comprehensive [NEPA] guidance and that information is readily available and shared as necessary to ensure our analyses and reviews are complete."
GAO prepared the report in response to a request by US Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee's Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. Dicks asked the service to review issues surrounding oil and gas development in the North Aleutian basin, which US Interior Ken Salazar subsequently removed from the administration's proposed 2012-17 OCS schedule. The report addresses issues and offers recommendations about other Alaska OCS areas too, the MMS spokesman said.
The report recommended that Salazar direct MMS Director S. Elizabeth Birnbaum set a deadline for issuing a comprehensive NEPA handbook with guidance on how to implement the law, and periodically update and revise the information. "Such guidance should detail procedures for conducting and documenting NEPA-required analyses, including how determinations of significance are to be made and how scientific findings are to be reviewed," it said. Responding to a draft of the report on Mar. 1, Wilma A. Lewis, assistant US Interior secretary for land and minerals management, said MMS plans to issue NEPA guidance to headquarters and regional employees by Dec. 31.
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