…hanging over any potential development in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve is the failed attempt by Royal Dutch Shell to tap reserves off Alaska. In 2015, after years of legal fighting with environmental groups, the European oil giant announced it was abandoning $2.5 billion in drilling rights in U.S. Arctic waters.
WASHINGTON – In enacting the biggest overhaul of the tax code in 30 years, the Republican-controlled Congress also opened the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. But already environmentalists are moving to shut it down.
Just hours after the Senate passed the legislation Wednesday, environmental groups swore to fight to block the drilling provisions.
The National Audubon Society released a statement that it would “do whatever it takes to prevent drilling in America’s bird nursery.”
“This tax bill trades away a national treasure – for what – oil we don’t need and the fiction that oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will serve as a bank to offset tax cuts?” said David Yarnold, president of the National Audubon Society. “This is the biggest threat the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has ever seen.”
Republicans included a provision in the tax bill that would lease a section of ANWR for oil and gas drilling, ostensibly to help pay for the tax cuts while also cinching the support of Sen. Linda Murkowski, R-Alaska. Murkowski has long sought to allow drilling in the refuge to help offset a steep decline in oil production from the North Slope that has left Alaska’s state coffers badly depleted.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that lease sales in ANWR would generate $1.1 billion over the next decade, with revenue expected to rise as oil production comes online. Those that might be interested in exploring ANWR include the Houston companies ConocoPhillips and Hilcorp, which already operate on the North Slope.
The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge is set on 1.5 million acres between the Arctic Ocean and the mountains of Alaska’s Brooks Range. The area of ANWR targeted for drilling is home to polar bears, wolves and more than 150 species of birds. The vast expanse also serves as a critical stop for porcupine caribou herds on their migration around Alaska and Canada.
Oil and gas lobbyists have pressed the government to allow drilling in ANWR, where one of the largest oil fields is believed to lie, since Congress declared it a wildlife refuge in 1980. Former president George W. Bush tried but failed to open ANWR to oil and gas companies more than a decade ago.
For President Donald Trump, the ANWR provision added to his tax-cut victory as he continues to fulfill his pledge to unshackle the energy industry from government restrictions. Earlier this year, Trump issued an order undoing President Barack Obama’s decision to ban new drilling operations in most of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska.
And just recently, the administration shrunk the borders of two national monuments in Utah, a move widely viewed as freeing up more land for the energy industry.
But hanging over any potential development in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve is the failed attempt by Royal Dutch Shell to tap reserves off Alaska. In 2015, after years of legal fighting with environmental groups, the European oil giant announced it was abandoning $2.5 billion in drilling rights in U.S. Arctic waters.
Any oil company looking to drill in ANWR should expect similar resistance, analysts said. Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, called the Republican tax overhaul “among the worst pieces of legislation we’ve seen in over a generation … made even more tragic because it sacrifices one of our last great wild places.”
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
