Opinion: Colorado business leaders are against Arctic drilling

I recently joined other Colorado businesses on a letter asking Sen. John Hickenlooper to take congressional action to address the financial bust of a lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and protect this American treasure once and for all. By protecting the Arctic Refuge, Hickenlooper will be supporting fiscally responsible decisions, taking climate action, and supporting the human rights of Indigenous peoples.

Drilling in the Arctic Refuge is incredibly risky and fiscally irresponsible. It’s so risky, in fact, that the January lease sale, mandated by a provision thrown into a bill from 2017, failed to receive industry interest with no major oil companies bidding. Additionally, the state of Alaska (an entity that does not even have the ability to develop) placed nearly all of the winning bids and the only other bidders were two tiny companies that each picked up a single oil lease.

It also did not come close to delivering on the promised revenue. Drilling was originally projected to yield $1.1 billion for the U.S. Treasury. Yet in actuality, the flop of a first lease sale generated less than 1% of the revenue that was projected.

The financial risks are so clear that all major banks in the United States and Canada are among the two dozen banks around the world — along with many major insurers — that have announced they will not fund or insure any new oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge. The banks know it, major oil companies know it, insurance companies know it: Drilling in the Refuge doesn’t make financial sense and isn’t worth the risks.

Fossil fuel extraction would also have serious biological, cultural, and climate impacts in the rapidly warming Arctic Refuge, which is ground zero for climate change and is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. Drilling in the refuge’s coastal plain would compound the devastating climate impacts already being felt in this majestic place.

Additionally, the massive infrastructure needed to extract and transport the oil, as well as accompanying air, water, and noise pollution from drilling, would have devastating impacts on this pristine and fragile natural area. Chronic spills of oil and other toxic substances in the fragile tundra would irreversibly and forever scar this land.

This land has sustained the Gwich’in people since time immemorial. They call the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge, “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins.” The caribou that calve on the coastal plain are essential to Gwich’in spiritual and cultural life. Drilling in the refuge would threaten caribou migrations, cause lower caribou birth rates, jeopardize food security and threaten the health and safety of Indigenous communities. Protecting the caribou is a matter of basic human rights.

Sen. Hickenlooper, please join an overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose drilling the Arctic Refuge by taking action to undo the 2017 legislation that mandated two oil and gas lease sales for the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge. Even though the first sale did not live up to the fiscal promises, without congressional action, a second sale is required by 2024.

As the global community pivots away from fossil fuels in the face of climate change, it is no surprise that there is little industry interest for oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge. Colorado businesses support you working to conserve the Arctic Refuge for fiscally responsible reasons, Indigenous rights, for wildlife, for future generations and for the health of our planet.

Mike Lewis is the marketing director of the Boulder-based Zeal Optics.