The recent grounding of a Shell oil rig near Alaska's Kodiak Island may have been the biggest mishap of the 2012 Arctic drilling season, but it was hardly the only one. This past year the exploration in America's Arctic Ocean has been characterized by one problem after another,...

Oil industry plans to drill exploratory wells in America's Arctic Ocean got off to an inauspicious start recently, when a Shell Oil Co. drilling ship slipped anchor and drifted perilously close to the beach at Alaska's Dutch Harbor. A tugboat pulled the massive rig back into place, and...

The Gulf of Mexico disaster should have brought all the stakeholders together to better prevent and respond to future spills, whether in deep water or in frontier areas such as the Arctic Ocean. Immediately after a disaster, it is easier to get reform than it is years later,...

America's Arctic Ocean is home to bowhead whales, walruses, ice seals, polar bears, and other marine mammals found nowhere else in the country. As a new Pew Environment Group video shows, these iconic animals, along with millions of migratory birds, thrive in this remote, extreme, and fragile region.

These...

Science, not politics, needs to guide decision-making in America's extreme, remote, and fragile Arctic Ocean. If we are to avoid irreparable harm to an ecosystem found nowhere else in the country, we need to develop a comprehensive research and monitoring plan and set aside significant areas for protection.

In the next 30 days, the Obama administration will decide on an oil industry request to drill new wells in Alaska's Beaufort Sea. If approved, these would be the first exploration wells drilled in America's extreme, remote and fragile Arctic Ocean since the Deepwater Horizon explosion...

There are no quick fixes for the nation's energy needs. Although oil plays a role in President Obama's energy plan, the government must ensure proper oversight and planning before drilling, especially in such extreme, remote and fragile areas as the Arctic Ocean off of Alaska's northern...

It seems as though any disruption in the Middle East or major spike in gas or oil prices is often followed by a loud call for more drilling in the United States, including in Alaska's Arctic. But the Deepwater Horizon disaster demonstrated what can happen when we plunge...

Before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, industry insisted that offshore drilling technology had become so advanced that a blowout was unlikely, if not impossible. Regulators accepted those assurances, and citizens had few tools with which to verify them. As a result, safety officials could not do what was necessary...

The March 24, 1989, Exxon Valdez catastrophe no longer holds the distinction of being the largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters. In sheer size, it was eclipsed last April by the disastrous well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. But as our video, "Lingering Oil," shows, the...