Monnett, C

=Mann and Monnett became targets b/c of?
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett</a>Charles Monnett, Ph.D. is an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic" title="Arctic" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Arctic</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_biologist" title="Wildlife biologist" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wildlife biologist</a> with U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOEMRE" class="mw-redirect" title="BOEMRE" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BOEMRE</a>), an agency of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.Department_of_the_Interior" class="mw-redirect" title="U.S. Department of the Interior" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">U.S. Department of the Interior</a> that manages the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_continental_shelf" class="mw-redirect" title="Outer continental shelf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">OCS</a>).As Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOEMRE" class="mw-redirect" title="BOEMRE" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BOEMRE</a>, Monnett coordinated much of the agency's research on Arctic wildlife and ecology and had duties that included managing about $50 million worth of studies on the impact of oil/gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-ABC1-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a>In July 2011, Monnett was suspended for 6 weeks, and lost his COR status, pending an ongoing investigation by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_the_Interior" title="United States Department of the Interior" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">DOI</a> Office of Inspector General. His defenders claimed he was subjected to a smear campaign.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-Guardian1-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a>In December 2013, The Department of the Interior settled a whistleblower suit initiated by Monnett. They cleared his record of any reference to wrongdoing and awarded him $100,000.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-NPR1-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;" xmlns:xml="xml"><h2 style="background: none; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: 0px; display: inline; line-height: 1.3;">Contents</h2>  [<a role="button" tabindex="0" class="togglelink" style="background: none; cursor: pointer;">hide</a>] </div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#Research" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1Research</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#Investigation_and_suspension" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2Investigation and suspension</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#Outcome" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Outcome</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5External links</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Research[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Monnett&action=edit&section=1&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Research" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>Monnett's research has been focused on the Arctic. He is the author of several studies on the Arctic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem" title="Ecosystem" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ecosystem</a>, particularly several done for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.Fish_and_Wildlife_Service" class="mw-redirect" title="U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service</a> in the wake of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill" title="Exxon Valdez oil spill" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Exxon Valdez oil spill</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a>Some of Monnett's most noted work deals with polar bears and the effects of climate change on the species. Monnett was on a research flight tracking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowhead_whales" class="mw-redirect" title="Bowhead whales" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">bowhead whales</a> in 2004 when he and a colleague, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeff_Gleason&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jeff Gleason (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jeff Gleason</a>, spotted four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-Guardian1-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a> After additional research, Monnett found that this was "the first time dead bears [had] been spotted among more than 350 sightings of swimming bears recorded over 16 years of surveying the area."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-NewScientist1-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> Monnett conjectured that this was due to "bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They [were] being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed [were] melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-ToL1-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a>Monnett published his findings in 2006 in an article in the peer-reviewed journal <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Biology" title="Polar Biology" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Polar Biology</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-monnett2006-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore" title="Al Gore" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Al Gore</a> referenced Monnett's study in his 2006 documentary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth" title="An Inconvenient Truth" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">An Inconvenient Truth</a>, which made the polar bears into an important symbol of climate change.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-NPR1-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a> The paper was cited by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in its 2008 decision to list the polar bear as threatened under the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_Species_Act" class="mw-redirect" title="Endangered Species Act" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Endangered Species Act</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-Bloomberg1-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Investigation and suspension[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Monnett&action=edit&section=2&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Investigation and suspension" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>On July 18, 2011, Dr. Monnett was suspended and put on administrative leave by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOEMRE" class="mw-redirect" title="BOEMRE" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BOEMRE</a>, pending results of an investigation into "integrity issues" by the DOI Office of Inspector General.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-NYT1-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-ALASKA1-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a> During his paid leave, he was forbidden from speaking to colleagues or entering any Interior offices.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOEMRE" class="mw-redirect" title="BOEMRE" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BOEMRE</a> director Michael Bromwich stated that Monnett's dismissal was not politically motivated, and did not involve questions about his scientific integrity.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-ALASKA2-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a> However, there was comment from climate "sceptics" that did raise questions about the integrity of scientists. British <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_(UK)" title="Conservative Party (UK)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Conservative</a> columnist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Widdecombe" title="Ann Widdecombe" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ann Widdecombe</a> used the case to justify her view that "climate change money should go to armed services".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-Express-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a>Monnett's legal representative, the non-profit watchdog group <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Employees_for_Environmental_Responsibility" title="Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility</a> (PEER), stated that Monnett is subjected to a "witch hunt" regarding his 2006 scientific paper on drowned polar bears<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-PEER1-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a> and released a transcript of a February 2011 interview of Monnett conducted by criminal investigator of the DOI Office of Inspector General.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a> Although Monnett was questioned in the interview about the polar bear paper, it is not clear what relation, if any, it had to the integrity issues which bureau officials have cited. The investigations did impact on Monnett's oversight of a Canadian research study: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOEMRE" class="mw-redirect" title="BOEMRE" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BOEMRE</a> briefly issued a stop-work order on the study, which was providing data on the movements of radio-collared polar bears being monitored by Canadian scientists.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-LAT1-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a>Monnett returned to work on August 25, although <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOEMRE" class="mw-redirect" title="BOEMRE" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BOEMRE</a> declared that Monnett will have no role in developing or managing contracts and will instead be in the environmental assessment division, and that future administrative actions are not ruled out.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-NPR1-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a>The investigation of a scientist by criminal investigators of the Inspector General triggered an outcry of protests from scientists and environmental and legal watchdog groups alike. "There's no way this can have anything but a chilling effect on the ability of other scientists to carry out their work," says Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute with the Center for Biological Diversity.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-NPR1-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a> and group of Australian scientists sent a letter to President Obama, stating "This seems like the type of anti-science action that would have occurred under your predecessor and is similar to actions more expected in the pre-1989 Soviet Union".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-PEER3-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a>The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) so far takes a neutral stand on the issue. "We won't know, until the inspector general is done, exactly what the charges are and exactly what they are finding," says Francesca Grifo, director of the scientific integrity program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-NPR1-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a> Last year, UCS declared that the new DOI scientific integrity policy, as instated by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on September 29, 2010, was "not an agency-wide scientific integrity policy as it states, but rather a scientist misconduct policy".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-UCS1-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a>PEER filed an official complaint with the DOI to protest the treatment of Monnett under this suspension and inquiry, asked that Monnett be reinstated and that the investigation be dropped or pursued by specifying charges against Monnett, along with a public apology from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOEMRE" class="mw-redirect" title="BOEMRE" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">BOEMRE</a> and the Inspector General.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-PEER1-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-AP1-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Outcome</h2>In 2012 Monnett was cleared of scientific misconduct,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-dotearth-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[21]</a> but reprimanded for the improper release of government documents. The documents in question, issued from 2007 to early 2008, had been cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in making decisions to vacate BOEMRE's approval of the Shell oil exploration plans in the Beaufort sea. BOEMRE argued that the documents were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, and thus should not have been disclosed. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[22]</a>Monnett and PEER then filed a suit against BOEMRE, arguing that the e-mails he disclosed showed that the agency was breaking laws to push through Arctic offshore drilling permits, and the reprimand thus represented retaliation against a whistleblower. In 2013 BOEMRE settled, claiming that "The settlement document states that it does not constitute any admission of liability and that the agency entered into it to avoid the costs of litigation". However, the Department then removed all reprimand from Monnett's record and awarded him a cash settlement of $100,000. In addition to the other agreements in the settlement, the agency issued a certificate for a conservation award from the secretary of the interior which Monnett won in 2010, but that the agency had removed his name from.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Monnett#cite_note-NPR1-3" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">[3]</a>=NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I also wanted to ask you, Professor Banerjee, about the threats faced by environmental scientists under the Trump administration. In August, Democracy Now! <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/8/meet_the_senior_federal_official_blowing" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border: 0px;">interviewed</a> Interior Department whistleblower Joel Clement, a senior official at the Interior Department who had focused on the dangers that climate change poses to Alaska Native communities in the Arctic. We spoke with Clement after he was transferred to an unrelated job within the Interior Department where he was tasked with collecting royalty checks from oil and gas companies.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">*JOEL CLEMENT: There’s been a long pattern, since the administration took over, of suppressing science, muzzling scientists, sidelining subject matter experts. The biggest concern is that doing so has huge consequences for Americans—and, particularly in my case, those Alaska Natives. I mean, that permafrost is melting. They’re fully exposed to storms now that the sea ice has receded. And that concern is not going to be limited to Alaska Natives for long.</blockquote>NERMEEN SHAIKH: So that’s Interior Department whistleblower Joel Clement speaking in August. He has since, of course, resigned. So, Professor Banerjee, can you talk about the threats faced by environmental scientists under the Trump administration?SUBHANKAR BANERJEE: This is—thank you for bringing this up. This is not only the Trump administration, but previous administrations have done this, is there is—any scientist working on pathbreaking work on Arctic offshore, or offshore at large, that somehow gets entangled with oil and gas issues, are being silenced and punished. So, Joel Clement is the latest of this. I’ll give you two more examples. And Joel Clement’s work is, again, pathbreaking, because the coastal erosion is an extremely significant issue for indigenous communities all across Arctic Alaska, both—all across Arctic Alaska. And he was trying to highlight that. And so, as we are speaking right now, the Department of Interior is actually hosting what they call some sort of a symposium to do a massive overhaul or reorganization of their senior staff members. And Joel Clement got caught up in that, but he’s extremely courageous, so he went and blew the whistle. Democracy Now! covered it.Now let me give you a couple of more examples. Charles Monnett was a leading federal Arctic biologist who studied the polar bear biology and the first scientist to bring attention to the plight of polar bears from climate change. His research was published, and that research he did in the Beaufort Sea, where Trump administration will try to open up to oil drilling. He did the research in 2004, when polar bears were drowning in the Beaufort Sea because of melting sea ice. The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Polar Biology in 2006, which actually inspired the animation in Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, and brought worldwide attention to the plight of polar bears from climate change. Fast-forward, the Bush administration then went after Charles Monnett and his studies. Again, they demoted him, and they did all sorts of things to cover his funding and so on and so forth. But Obama administration went one step further, because Obama administration was also really pushing for oil and gas development in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. The Obama administration Department of Interior actually put Charles Monnett under house arrest in 2012 for six weeks, after which he was released without any charges being leveled against him.Then there’s a third example of Professor Richard Steiner of University of Alaska Fairbanks, who spoke out against oil and gas issues in the Bering Sea. The University of Alaska took away all his federal funding, from agencies like National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He protested. Democracy Now! did the coverage. Amy, you spoke with Rick Steiner also. And he protested and filed a lawsuit, and then he resigned.So, to draw attention to all of these issues, I am convening a major conference called “The Last Oil” at the University of New Mexico, that will take place from February 21 to 23rd, to bring attention to this form of silencing, punishing, as well as marginalization of indigenous people all across the Arctic.AMY GOODMAN: Finally—SUBHANKAR BANERJEE: So, we are in a time they are doing everything to undermine the public process. They’re silencing scientists. They’re marginalizing and silencing indigenous communities. We need a all-out antiwar movement, antiwar-style movement now.=http://www.alternet.org/print/environment/what-happened-govt-scientist-whose-findings-stood-way-big-oils-plans-arctic-drilling
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In February 2011, Charles Monnett, an Arctic marine biologist who in 2006 published the first observations of a decline in the polar bear population of the Arctic due to melting sea ice, was interviewed by Eric May and Lynn Gibson from the Department of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General. The conversation was perplexing. May and Gibson, criminal investigators with the IG, began by suggesting that Monnett was being investigated for scientific misconduct, but early on in the conversation they admitted that neither of them had any training in science and biology.From there, the <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/files/7_28_11_monnett-ig_interview_transcript.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">transcript</a> [3] of the conversation, a document released by Monnett’s legal representation, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER),becomes murkier. May and Gibson’s line of questioning shifts several times, making it increasingly unclear what aspects of misconduct were being investigated. Monnett explains that his findings, published in Polar Biology, were peer-reviewed; May responds by asking how Polar Biology got involved. Monnett painstakingly takes May and Gibson through the calculations and observations underlying his data, but they seem dissatisfied and change tacks.What happened after isn’t murky at all. Soon after the interview, Dr. Monnett’s hard drive and notebooks were seized. In July 2011, Monnett found out from his employer, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), that he had been put been put on administrative leave, barring him from speaking to his colleagues or continuing his research.The investigation had turned in to a virtual witch-hunt—but when the IG finally released its report toward the end of 2012, its only allegations were of an administrative nature. Monnett subsequently filed a <a href="http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2011/07/28/arctic-scientist-protests-witch-hunt-on-polar-bear-paper-/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">whistleblower complaint</a> [4] against BOEMRE, alleging that the official harassment had impeded him from doing his job and that the Interior Department was violating its own scientific integrity policies intended to protect federal scientists from political interference. In November 2013, Monnett reached a $100,000 settlement with BOEMRE.The tale of Dr. Monnett is now a few years old, but instructive. Both Monnett and PEER have maintained that Monnett was harassed and essentially eliminated from the ranks of BOEMRE because he represented a threat to the financial stakes of oil companies like Shell hoping to open up the Alaskan Arctic for offshore drilling projects, and that suppressing scientific research was seen as necessary for Shell’s permits to go through. At the time, BOEMRE had been reviewing Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic. It approved those permits in 2012, and again, in a highly contentious decision by the Obama administration, earlier this year.Now, years after the debacle, Monnett says he has complex feelings about the dynamics of the science done in federal agencies, given how overbearing the oil industry is and its pervasive influence on the government.The Bush administration, Monnett recalls, had “created an environment where the managers [of BOEMRE] were very hostile and aggressive towards some of the scientists…which led to a number of people leaving the agency. These people were being actively attacked by managers, screamed at in hallways, threatened with all sorts of actions. Some of them were even being threatened with legal action. The agency just wasn’t receptive to honest analysis.”“Because of pressure from industry and the administration…certain timelines had to be met, and those timelines weren’t long enough to allow [scientists] to do complete analysis. Management was dictating the outcomes…which is against the law in my view.”The Bush administration’s agenda from the very beginning was pro-drilling, and therefore invested in fast-tracking Shell’s permits for the Arctic. During the administration’s tenure, there was a <a href="http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2010/04/07/interior-cooking-books-on-alaska-offshore-eco-analyses/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">mass exodus</a> [5] of scientists from BOEMRE—at the time known as the Minerals Management Service—who were under pressure to overlook the overwhelming environmental concerns of Arctic oil drilling in their analyses.But Monnett’s investigation began in 2011, not during the Bush administration but during the Obama administration, foretelling Obama’s climate legacy of paying lip service to climate change while <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/18308/how-the-government-fast-tracked-shells-arctic-oil-drilling-plans" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">fast-tracking</a> [6] Shell’s offshore drilling plans all the same.On Monday morning, President Obama <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/31/obama_trip_to_alaska_stark_difference_between_rhetoric_and_action_on_climate.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">arrived</a> [7] in Alaska to shed “a spotlight on what Alaskans in particular have come to know: climate change is one of the biggest threats we face, it is driven by human activity, and it is disrupting Americans’ lives right now.” The trip, mere weeks after the final <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/17/u_s_gives_shell_permit_to_drill_for_oil_in_arctic_ocean_off_alaska.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">approval</a> [8]for Shell’s summer plans to drill in the Chukchi Sea, is likely to be seen in retrospect as illustrative of the schizophrenic energy policy the Obama administration has long espoused.The Limits of Academic FreedomScientific suppression and the loss of many scientists to BOEMRE during the Bush administration have been <a href="http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2010/04/07/interior-cooking-books-on-alaska-offshore-eco-analyses/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">well-documented</a> [5], but as Dr. Monnett’s case reveals, something similar, if not worse, has been underfoot during the current administration. As the case of Professor Rick Steiner demonstrates, the influence of oil goes well beyond federal agencies in Alaska.A tenured professor of marine conservation at the University of Alaska, Steiner spent a large part of his career in the Arctic and then Anchorage, Alaska. Steiner had been a vocal opponent of offshore oil drilling since the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and a staunch defender of marine conservation—positions that got him in to trouble multiple times during his career.In December 2007, soon after Monnett’s polar bear paper was published, there was a federal proposed rule to list polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. At the time, Gov. Sarah Palin publicly stated that Alaska state marine mammal biologists (ADFG) disagreed with the rule, but Steiner was unsatisfied. After much resistance from the ADFG, he obtained the state review through a federal Freedom of Information Act request. The review, underscoring the dishonesty of the Palin administration, showed that marine mammal scientists overwhelmingly agreed that polar bears should be classified as endangered. This move, and many others, put Steiner on the radar as a staunch advocate of marine conservation and opponent of the pervasive influence of the oil industry in Alaska.In 2008, when the federal government began to consider an expansion of oil development projects in Alaska, Steiner continued to raise major environmental concerns. Written records released by PEER chart out what happened next: the University of Alaska and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration terminated the grant funding for Steiner’s research work. The <a href="http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2009/10/20/professor-stripped-of-noaa-funding-for-advocacy/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">documents</a> [9] demonstrate how pressure from NOAA led university officials to cut Steiner’s funding: federal officials wrote that they “had an issue with Steiner” and that his environmental advocacy could “cause problems nationally” for the agency. PEER <a href="http://www.oasis-earth.com/Resources/2009%20Steiner%20academic%20freedom%20case-web-use.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">called</a> [10] this one of the first instances where a university and federal agency admitted to removing a faculty member’s funding because of their environmental positions.Steiner filed multiple internal grievance claims which were all rejected by the university, and in February 2010, Dr. Steiner resigned from the university faculty on principle. Soon after, he was told by a friend who had been in a meeting with university officials that oil executives had met with university officials, telling them point blank that as long as Steiner continued to oppose the oil industry, the university would not get a dime of its money. The University of Alaska, like many public institutions in Alaska, is funded largely by oil revenues.Like Monnett, Steiner says his experience taught him the limits to academic and scientific freedom in a place like Alaska. “It is a systemic problem far beyond BOEMRE,” he explains. “It’s in all the agencies, the universities. It’s state and federal and a broad systemic problem in Alaska.“[The University] felt I was being too much of an advocate for marine conservation which is in contradiction to their professed goal of being in favor of academic freedom.”And indeed, the brazen nature of the university’s statements on Steiner’s case is deeply shocking. In the recommendation to cut Steiner’s funding, Dean Wiesenburg of the University of Alaska <a href="http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=74823611090" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">noted</a> [11] that Steiner “regularly takes strong public positions on issues of public debate.” Steiner, he said, “has chosen to be a maverick and work independently.”To Steiner, what this means is clear. “There is an unwritten orthodoxy in Alaska,” he explains, “that dissenting opinions regarding unsustainable economic and political paradigms here need to be suppressed and silenced. Everybody knows that. There’s a very strong political dynamic where agencies and public institutions like the university are captured by the oil industry because it pays 95% of the state budget. Federal agencies bend over backwards for the oil industry and tend to marginalize voices that threaten that dynamic. If you criticize oil, you will have hell to pay.”“There aren’t very many dissenters. The whole point of making an example of me and Charles [Monnett] was to suppress people from doing that in the future. People have learned that if they want to keep their job and their pay check, and their pension and their benefits, they need to keep their head down.”A Handy Guide to Scientific SuppressionThe cases of Charles Monnett and Rick Steiner have dire implications for how we view Shell’s offshore drilling plans in the Chukchi Sea this summer, and the lengths to which they went to acquire the permits. Much of this can only be guessed at. Steiner talks about the prevailing culture where federal agencies and universities begin to eliminate scientists who do not conform to the pro-oil agenda by not granting promotions or incentive awards, or giving them inadequate annual performance reviews. Another tactic, he says, is overwhelming staff scientists with trivial tasks, pulling them off projects for which they are qualified.Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, an organization that seeks to protect scientist whistleblowers, can add to this list. “The range of things we see,” he says, “range from attempts to terminate, suspend, crippling internal investigations. In one case involving a lab director, the funding for his graduate students was jeopardized so he lost a lot of his research capacity. Preventing publications has no limits—in one case, a scientist was raising issues and her email privileges were taken away. We were left scratching our heads wondering how that could have happened.”One possible remedy is scientific integrity policies that protect whistleblowers, but as Ruch explains, they are far from satisfactory. “Industry puts pressure on government agencies, and government agencies are the instrument of retaliation,” he explains. “For the most part, scientists have few legal protections. These scientists are not covered by whistleblower laws, because they’re not disclosing violations of law, fraud, or abuse. They’re disclosing suppression of research, or watering down of methodologies or the omission of key findings.”“The law generally treats these as a matter of opinion and in these cases, the chain of command generally wins over the staff scientist.”In his experience, Ruch says “scientific integrity policies operate within the Department of the Interior—those were weakened in December to make it even more difficult to sustain a complaint. Up until that time, there had been 2 instances out of 14 where the scientist involved faced multiple suspensions and the responsible managers escaped punishment altogether. It’s difficult to advise scientists in good conscience to file complaints under their own name because they’re unlikely to resolve in anything good.”Early in 2009, Obama <a href="http://www.livescience.com/3367-obama-calls-scientific-integrity.html" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">released</a> [12] a presidential directive to develop policies that restore scientific integrity to federal actions, including providing federal scientists better whistleblower protections. At the time, this was hailed as a huge leap in the right direction.Ruch feels not much has changed. “The agencies in the Interior have largely ignored the presidential directive,” he explains. “Some policies claim protections but have no mechanisms by which that protection is implemented, which makes it empty protection.”Environmental groups argue that this scientific suppression, and overlooking the enormous environmental risks, has been key to the Obama administration’s approval of Shell’s permits this year. Much of the information detailing the safety and reliability of Shell’s operations has not been released to the public, despite multiple FOIA requests by groups like Greenpeace and PEER. A recent FOIA request by PEER, directed at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), seeks to release information on how Shell’s plans for certified by third-party observers, as well as information on the deployment of capping stack and containment domes in the event of an oil spill. BSEE has not responded. PEER has now <a href="http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/suit-to-obtain-arctic-offshore-drilling-safety-data.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">filed</a> [13] a lawsuit in a federal district court to bring these details to light.As President Obama continues his trip in Alaska to highlight the dangers of climate change amid overwhelming opposition from environmental and indigenous groups, it begs big questions about the administration’s overarching legacy with federal scientists and the oil industry. Ruch feels strongly about this: “In terms of the actions inside these agencies, there has been no discernible difference between those under George Bush, who was an oil man, and Barack Obama, a constitutional law professor who when his own Commission on the Deepwater Horizon spill met with him, one of the very first questions he asked was about Arctic drilling.”“It has been clear that Arctic drilling is part of the ‘all-the-above’ energy strategy and the same sort of suppression and the same suite of issues have never really been analyzed.”For an administration pretending to conduct a dramatic push toward mitigating climate change, that is a shameful record.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/drowned-polar-bear-scientist_n_1924730.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/drowned-polar-bear-scientist_n_1924730.html</a>

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JUNEAU, Alaska -- An Alaska scientist whose observations of drowned polar bears helped galvanize the global warming movement has been reprimanded for improper release of government documents.

An Interior Department official said emails released by Charles Monnett were cited by a federal appeals court in decisions to vacate approval by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of an oil and gas company's Arctic exploration plan.

The official, Walter Cruickshank, deputy director of BOEM, said in a memo that an inspector general's investigation contained findings that Monnett had improperly disclosed internal government documents, which he said were later used against the agency in court. He also said the investigation made other findings in regards to Monnett's conduct, but he wasn't taking action on those. He would not specify those findings.

Cruickshank called Monnett's "misconduct very serious," and said any future misconduct may lead to more severe discipline, including removal from federal service.

Monnett was briefly suspended last year during an inspector general's investigation into a polar bear research contract he managed. The inspector general's report, which was released Friday, said its investigation was set off by a complaint from an unidentified Interior Department employee who alleged that Monnett wrongfully released government records and that he and another scientist, Jeffrey Gleason, intentionally omitted or used false data in an article they wrote on polar bears. During that investigation, authorities also looked into the procurement issue.

Jeff Ruch, executive director of the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which has been involved in the matter on Monnett's behalf, said Friday that the issue of the document release did not even come up in investigators' questioning of Monnett.

He called the outcome "completely unexpected," and said Monnett is confused by it.

PEER, in a news release, said the email disclosure had nothing to do with polar bear research but that it embarrassed the agency.

"We think he's owed an apology, but we're not going to hold our breath until he gets one," Ruch said.

Federal investigators had said that Monnett helped a polar bear researcher prepare a proposal even though he was the government official who determined whether the proposal met minimum qualifications. PEER has said that Monnett's handling of the study was proper and that Monnett, instead, was being targeted for a 2006 article on drowned polar bears.

The article was based on observations that Monnett and Gleason made in 2004 while conducting an aerial survey of bowhead whales. They saw four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm.

In the article, they said they were reporting, to the best of their knowledge, the first observations of the bears floating dead and presumed drowned while apparently swimming long distances. They wrote that while polar bears are considered strong swimmers, long-distance swims may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on ice in better weather.

They said their findings suggested that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future "if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."

The article and related presentations helped to make the polar bear a symbol for the global warming movement.

According to the inspector general's report, investigators found that Monnett and Gleason used an incomplete database as their primary source of information to write the article, made conflicting statements to investigators regarding the writing and editing process and understated data in the manuscript. However, they found that the article had "little or no impact" on a federal decision to extend special protections to polar bears under the Endangered Species Act, according to the report.

A BOEM spokeswoman, Theresa Eisenman, said the findings in the report do not support a conclusion that the scientists involved engaged in "scientific misconduct."

Monnett's reprimand could be removed from his record in two years or less.

Ruch said Monnett has been told he will return to scientific work.

===

polar bear scandal?

<a href="http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/07/charles-monnett-polar-bear-scientist">http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/07/charles-monnett-polar-bear-scientist</a>

kate s:

Everything you've been told about polar bears and global warming is a lie. Or at least that's what climate skeptics have <a href="http://blogs.cbn.com/hurdontheweb/archive/2011/07/28/inconvenient-data-global-warming-gets-dinged-again-and-again.aspx">rushed</a> <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/28/polar-bear-scientist-intergrity-issues/">to claim</a> in response to the news that the government is investigating a scientist who <a target="_blank" href="https://motherjones.com/files/7_28_11_polar_bear_paper.pdf">wrote a significant paper</a> five years ago about drowned bears in the warming Arctic. Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) in Alaska, has been placed on administrative leave as the agency's inspector general undertakes an investigation into unnamed "integrity issues." But an environmental watchdog group believes that the real reason for the investigation is pressure from oil and gas interests who see polar bears as pests that stand between them and the vast mineral reserves deep beneath the Arctic.

The details of the investigation are odd, to say the very least. On February 4, 2011, Monnett received a request for an interview from Eric May, a criminal investigator with the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of the Interior.[no bkgd in sci]  May and another agent interviewed Monnett on February 23, 2011, in the Anchorage office of BOEMRE.

From <a href="https://motherjones.com/files/7_28_11_monnett-ig_interview_transcript.pdf" target="_blank">the transcript</a>, provided to Mother Jones by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), it's clear that the interview focused largely on the polar bear paper, with the agents asking questions about his methodology and conclusions. The paper, published in the journal Polar Biology in 2006, documented four dead polar bears in the Beaufort Sea during the course of an annual whale survey in September 2004. It was the first paper to document dead bears, and Monnett and his coauthor projected that there would likely be an increase in bear deaths as sea ice declined in the region. During their conversation, Monnett noted that the paper was reviewed both internally at Minerals Management Service (now known as BOEMRE) and by scientists outside of the agency, and it was approved by MMS management before they submitted it to the journal. At the journal, it was reviewed by three anonymous peer reviewers and approved for publication.

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At no point in the course of the interview, which lasted for two hours, did the agents state exactly what they were investigating. At one point, Jeff Ruch, the executive director of PEER (as well as an attorney and an observer of the investigation), asked about the allegations. May responded, "Well, the scientif-—well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations, uh—."

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"The level of criticism that they seem to have leveled here, scientific misconduct, uh, suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it," Monnett replied. "I sure don't see any indication of that in what you're asking me about."

"No, no, no further comment on my part," May said. May also admitted that he had no background in science when Monnett asked about his qualifications to investigate the matter.

According to PEER, the agents then seized Monnett's computer hard drive, notebooks, and other materials. Monnett says he did not receive any further substantial information about the investigation until June, when May asked to set up a follow-up interview. But before that interview could take place, on July 18, Monnett <a href="https://motherjones.com/files/7_28_11_admin_leave.pdf" target="_blank">received notice from BOEMRE's deputy regional director for Alaska</a>  Jeffrey Loman that he had been placed on administrative leave "effective immediately" and "pending the final results" of the inspector general's investigation. He was not to enter his office, speak to colleagues, or continue any of his scientific work.

And here's where things get really weird: Despite the line of questioning in the February interview, BOEMRE spokesman Melissa Schwartz told  Mother Jones that his suspension has "nothing to do with scientific integrity, his 2006 journal article, or issues related to permitting, as has been alleged."

On July 28, PEER <a target="_blank" href="https://motherjones.com/files/7_28_11_scientific_misconduct_complaint.pdf">filed a complaint</a> with the Department of the Interior alleging that BOEMRE violated the new <a href="http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/08/interior-department-scientific-integrity-policy">scientific-integrity policy</a> adopted by the DOI last year in its dealings with Monnett. And PEER executive director Jeff Ruch believes that there may be something more sinister at play in the investigation; he argues that Monnett's ouster is "a political attempt to interfere with science." BOEMRE, which is changed with overseeing oil and gas development in the region, is currently <a href="http://articles.ktuu.com/2011-07-06/deepwater-horizon_29745218">considering an application</a> from Shell to drill in the Beaufort Sea, where Monnett saw the dead bears. There have been heated debates between the DOI, enviros, and the oil and gas industry about whether the bears should be granted endangered species protection—which could make it more difficult to drill there.

Indeed, during his interview with inspector-general agents, Monnett said that after the paper was published, he faced backlash from an agency that was focused on drilling in the region above all else. "They don't want any impediment to, you know, what they view as their mission, which is to, you know, drill wells up there," he said. Monnett also said that he and his colleagues were "blasted" by their BOEMRE superiors when the paper was released and told that they weren't to speak about the findings publicly.

According to PEER's complaint, in addition to coordinating "a significant portion of all BOEM extramural research and a majority of BOEM research on Arctic wildlife and ecology," Monnett oversees $50 million in scientific studies from the agency in his role as a contracting officer’s representative. Agency officials "have actively persecuted Dr. Monnett, acted on hearsay and rumors, gratuitously tarnished his reputation, and substantially disrupted important scientific research." Monnett, PEER's Ruch wrote, has been "subjected to a Star Chamber procedure where he does not know what allegations have been made, yet is being treated as guilty."

On Thursday, in response to a request for comment, BOEMRE's Schwartz wrote: "All of the scientific contracts previously managed by Mr. Monnett are being managed by the highly qualified scientists at BOEMRE. Any allegations regarding scientific integrity would be addressed through the Department's new scientific integrity policy. The investigation is being handled by the Department's Office of the Inspector General."

This isn't the first time that this office of MMS/BOEMRE has been criticized for its handling of scientific-integrity concerns. BOEMRE was <a href="http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/09/what-boemre">created in the wake</a> of the BP spill last year as a successor to MMS, a <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/bp-bill-nelson-oil-spill">scandal-plagued agency</a> that had been criticized for being too close to the industries it was supposed to be regulating. A report from the Government Accountability Office issued in April 2010 <a href="http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/alaska-GAO-offshore-drilling-obama">specifically targeted the Alaska regional office</a> of MMS for a lack of transparency and adherence to scientific integrity.

If the basis for the allegations is, in fact, the polar bear paper, it would come as a surprise to most researchers working on the subject. In the five years since the paper was published, a number of other researchers have made similar observations. Just last week, a biologist from the US Geological Survey <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/07/20/science-sea-ice-polar-bears.html?ref=rss">presented a study</a> on long-distance swims and mortality among female polar bears and their cubs at a meeting of the International Bear in Ottawa. Steve Amstrup, a senior scientist with Polar Bears International and previously the chief scientist working on polar bears for the USGS's Anchorage office, said that the observations of Monnett and his colleagues were well documented.

"There is no question that the sea ice has retreated and that has resulted in polar bears facing much longer stretches of open water that they have to swim across," Amstrup said. "When you take that critical habitat away, that's going to have detrimental effects on the bears."

==

walter

As Deputy Director of BOEM, Dr. Cruickshank assists the Director in the administration of programs that manage the development of the Nation’s offshore resources in an environmentally and economically responsible way. These programs include leasing, plan administration, environmental studies, National Environmental Policy Act analysis, resource evaluation, economic analysis and the Renewable Energy Program.

Prior to becoming the Deputy Director of BOEM upon its establishment in October 2011, Dr. Cruickshank served as Deputy Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) and the former MMS since 2002.

Dr. Cruickshank previously served as the Bureau's Associate Director for Policy and Management Improvement and has worked in the Department of the Interior for more than 25 years. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Geological Sciences from Cornell University and a Doctorate in Mineral Economics from the Pennsylvania State University.

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Dr. Charles Monnett, who had been under investigation with respect to his 2006 paper documenting polar bear mortality and with his administration of a cooperative study of polar bears carried out jointly with the University of Alberta, appears to have been un officially vindicated. Yesterday, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), who have been representing Monnett, released emails showing that he had not acted improperly in any way.

They also noted that, unfortunately:

Finally, the fact of the investigation has subjected Dr. Monnett’s family to harassment, especially from climate-change skeptics who have, for example, posted his wife’s work email address on the web and invited readers to flood her inbox at her workplace which lead to a number of hateful and threatening messages.

Sadly, they are correct. I personally verified on 9/15/2011 that Climate Depot website had indeed done just that. Their post, date-stamped August 1, 2011, repeated the false claim that Dr. Monnett's wife (a respected scientist in her own right) had served as peer reviewer to her husband's paper, and publicly posted her work email address.

The post also commanded readers to:

Contact Monnett's wife [name redacted] with questions/comments about the Polar Bear paper: [email redacted.]

The reaction of some climate change denialists was apparently as predictable as it was regrettable, but PEER has drawn a merciful veil over the specific threats and insults that were hurled.

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</div><div id="Middle1" class="mojo_oas_ad content-ad">=<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13072017/arctic-offshore-drilling-trump-approved-eni-boem-alaska">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13072017/arctic-offshore-drilling-trump-approved-eni-boem-alaska</a><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Making good on its promise to jump-start Arctic offshore drilling, the Trump administration gave Italian oil company Eni a quick green light on Wednesday to drill exploratory wells off the coast of Alaska.This is the first Arctic drilling approval under President <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Donald Trump</a>. It also will be the first exploration project conducted in the U.S. Arctic since <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28092015/no-match-arctic-shell-abandons-oil-drilling-chukchi-sea" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Shell's failed attempt</a> in the Chukchi Sea in 2015.The approval comes as the administration <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28042017/doanld-trump-arctic-offshore-drilling-ban-obama-executive-order" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">attempts to overturn</a> former President <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/barack-obama" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Barack Obama</a>'s ban of new drilling in federal Arctic waters. Eni's leases were exempt from Obama's ban because the leases are not new.Environmental groups are calling the approval a sign that Trump is doing the bidding of the oil industry. The public had 21 days to review and comment on the exploration plan and 10 days to comment on the environmental impacts, which Kristen Monsell, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said was insufficient given the potential risks."An oil spill here would do incredible damage, and it'd be impossible to clean up," Monsell said. "The Trump administration clearly cares only about appeasing oil companies, no matter its legal obligations or the threats to polar bears or our planet."Eni plans to drill four exploratory wells in December 2017, just before the leases expire at the end of the year.The wells will be drilled from Spy Island, an existing gravel island in state waters, located three miles off the coast of Alaska. The wells would be the longest extended-reach wells in Alaska—stretching six miles horizontally into an area of shallow federal waters about six feet deep."We know there are vast oil and gas resources under the Beaufort Sea, and we look forward to working with Eni in their efforts to tap into this energy potential," said the Management's acting director, Walter Cruickshank, in a statement.Monsell noted that Eni had not pursued exploratory drilling there until its leases were about to expire."Approving this Arctic drilling plan at the 11th hour makes a dangerous project even riskier," she said.In June, the Center and 12 other environmental organizations, including Earthjustice, Greenpeace, WWF and the Sierra Club, sent comments to BOEM about Eni's proposed plan. In their comments, the groups said that Eni's plan failed to adequately assess the extent of environmental harm the project could pose, the likelihood of an oil spill, or how Eni would respond to a large oil spill."Eni simply has failed to submit a complete, adequate Exploration Plan and environmental impact analysis, and, accordingly BOEM should rescind its completeness determination and reject Eni's Exploration Plan," the groups wrote.BOEM disagreed, finding that the project would have "no significant impact.""Eni brought to us a solid, well-considered plan," Cruickshank said.Eni has said it will only drill in the winter when a potential oil spill would be easier to clean up and when whales are not migrating in the area.Before Eni can drill, it will have to secure additional permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.</div></div></div></div></div><div id="Middle1" class="mojo_oas_ad content-ad"></div>

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