Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is unnecessary and risky

If the Trump administration holds to its schedule, in the next few months it will commence with a sale of oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Major oil company executives will face a decision: Pass on the auction and annoy the president, or compete to explore and drill in the crown jewel of America’s public lands, the Alaska equivalent of Yosemite or Yellowstone.

My experience with oil executives suggests no enthusiasm for drilling in the Arctic Refuge. No conclusive data on total reserves exist, and everyone but administration spokespeople estimate that development would yield a tiny fraction of the $1.5 billion revenue estimate in the 2017 tax act that opened the refuge’s coastal plain to development. One credible estimate is just $45 million over a decade.

Oil companies have embraced sustainability plans, moved to implement better capture of methane and to reduce the footprint of drilling. But roads, pipelines, storage, noise, pollution and traffic are an unavoidable consequence of drilling in the refuge. I’ve always assumed an implicit balance governed Alaska’s North Slope, with development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to the west and protection to the east, for the Arctic Refuge.

The Arctic Refuge is unspoiled nature at its best. It is home to bears, musk oxen, foxes and wolves, and it is summertime destination for migratory birds from all 50 states. It is the calving ground of the Porcupine caribou herd, which indigenous Gwich’in people rely on to sustain their way of life.

What national interest could be so compelling to put all that at risk? America is setting records, with oil exports anticipated to overtake those of Russia and approaching those of Saudi Arabia. America is flush with oil.

And what company could ignore the reputational risks associated with drilling in the Arctic Refuge? Projected financial returns are highly speculative. A standard step is to conduct geologic and seismic surveys to assess drilling potential. But that has yet to happen, partially because such surveys could be disastrous for the fragile ecosystem. Companies are therefore making financial decisions based on nearly 40-year-old data and a secret test well that might have been dry. The coastal plain is a big financial gamble.

If companies invested the substantial finances necessary to lease areas of the coastal plain, their attempts to explore and develop would certainly be challenged by lawsuits. Litigation equals added business uncertainty.

Drilling in the refuge would put at risk the reputations of companies working to build the public trust. Energy companies like ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Shell have wisely begun to adopt climate and sustainability initiatives to help guide their investments. These initiatives are incompatible with developing the Arctic Refuge, where a sprawling infrastructure across the entire coastal plain would cause irreparable harm. A spill would prove disastrous for a company’s brand, especially because most Americans oppose drilling in the coastal plain.

Major oil company executives recently attended an energy conference at the Vatican. The moral cloud hanging over the planet and pressing down on the industry is the looming calamity that would be created by burning the vast reserves accumulated by oil companies. Meeting the Paris commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be only the first casualty.

“Civilization needs energy,” Pope Francis told industry leaders. But, he added, “Energy can destroy civilization.”

The pope has signaled the moral dimensions of the issue. Of all the places where exploration would invite public shame, of all the places to risk a reputation, of all the decisions that would cast a decade-long pall on a company — drilling in the Arctic Refuge would do it all.

To the CEOS of the oil industry I say: Don’t go there.

William K. Reilly served as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush, was appointed by President Barack Obama co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and served on the board of several Fortune 500 companies. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.