Bush Administration keeping secrets on Arctic drilling plans Club sues to enforce Freedom of Information Act The Sierra Club, Alaska Wilderness League, Defenders of Wildlife, and The Wilderness Society announced March 11 that they are suing the Bush Administration for refusing to divulge information about energy industry efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Bush Administration has refused to respond to two separate Freedom of Information Act requests to reveal communications about drilling in the Arctic Refuge, including any communications with the oil industry or lobbying groups. “We know the Bush Administration supports destructive drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the public deserves to know how and why that decision was made,” said David Bookbinder, Sierra Club attorney. Last year the environmental groups submitted two requests under the Freedom of Information Act for records, including scientific information, relevant to Department of the Interior’s treatment of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and proposals to open the coastal plain to oil development. To date, the Department of the Interior has not provided any documents responsive to these requests and has instead engaged in tactics designed to simply delay or obstruct the process. These tactics left the groups with no option but to have a court force the Administration to obey the law. A newly-released report by the National Academy of Sciences on the cumulative impacts of drilling on Alaska’s North Slope reaffirmed the devastating impacts that drilling has already caused across the region. The report provided further evidence that allowing this destructive development to extend into the Arctic Refuge would only exacerbate existing environmental and cultural problems and cause more damage. Drilling in the Arctic will do nothing to solve our current energy demands. Any oil from the Refuge will not reach the lower 48 states for at least 7-10 years according to the oil industry. The most optimistic estimates say there is only about six months supply of oil in the Arctic.

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