(NEW YORK)MintPress — Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, the fifth-largest company in the world and the second-largest energy company, is no stranger to controversy, but even its latest move to outfox opponents of its offshore well-drilling in the Arctic Ocean has taken critics by surprise.
The conglomerate, known simply as Shell, which is headquartered in The Hague and has its registered office in London, has just filed suit against more than a dozen environmental organizations likely to contest its plan for drilling exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea this summer.
In a petition filed in the U.S. District Court in Anchorage, Shell is hoping to have the court rule that the U.S. government complied with federal law when it approved Shell’s oil spill response plan for the exploratory drilling.
“This is a very unique legal approach. I’m not sure anything like this has ever been done before,” said Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh.
Preemptive legal strike
The suit names the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, the National Audobon Society, Oceana and several other groups which have frequently filed lawsuits against the government’s offshore leasing programs in the Arctic. The organizations have also challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of air quality permits for drilling operations.
Shell launched a separate petition against Greenpeace, whose activists last week boarded the drilling rig now moored in New Zealand and scheduled to begin drilling in the Arctic in July. Six activists, including television actress Lucy Lawless, a native of New Zealand, climbed the rig before being arrested.
Questions about rationale
Peter Van Tuyn, attorney for the Alaska Wilderness League, agreed it was “unusual” for Shell to initiate legal action. “What are they trying to do, get the courts to declare something legal that hasn’t been challenged as illegal? It seems premature, and potentially unnecessary,” he said.
Van Tuyn claims the move is a clear attempt to avoid costly delays for a project on which Shell has already spent $4 billion. According to Whit Sheard, Pacific counsel and senior advisor for Oceana, it’s likely the oil giant is also betting that filing suit in Alaska, which has a big economic stake in offshore oil exploration, will help the company to get the go ahead.
Environmental debate
Shell spokeswoman op de Weegh claims that the company’s action “does not restrict, and we’re not seeking to restrict, any parties’ right to challenge the oil spill response plan, which was recently approved by the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).
“We’re confident that the approval of this plan met all legal and regulatory requirements and it’s certainly strong enough to withstand legal review, but we’d just rather start that sooner rather than later,” she added.
Opponents are not convinced. “We don’t think they’ve adequately met the requirements of the law,” contended Oceana’s Sheard. “This cleanup plan, just like their previous cleanup plans, is woefully inadequate, based on technology that has never been proven, and continues to be too risky for the Arctic environment.”
Shell’s checkered past
Shell has in the past come under fire for myriad offenses. For one, the company was responsible for the world’s largest ever oil spill in freshwater. In January, 1999, a Shell tank ship in Magdalena, Argentina collided with another tanker, emptying its contents into the lake, polluting the environment, drinkable water, plants and animals.
Environmental groups have also charged that many of Shell’s pipelines in the Niger-Delta are old and corroded, resulting in numerous oil spills that have killed vegetation and fish and leading to mass protests by residents. In 2009, Amnesty International criticized Shell for its slow response to oil spills and its continuation of gas flaring.
Also that year, Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million in a settlement of lawsuits brought against it by several human rights groups to hold the company accountable for human rights violations in Nigeria, including summary execution, crimes against humanity, torture, inhumane treatment and arbitrary arrest and detention.
In particular, Shell was accused of collaborating in the execution of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe of southern Nigeria, who were hanged in 1995 by Nigeria’s then military rulers. Despite the payout, Shell has not accepted any liability over the allegations.
Too little, too late?
Shell has, however, set up an Internet-based facility for whistleblowers to report alleged violations of the law or its declared operating principles, a voluntary code of ethics pledging transparency, integrity and honesty in all of the company’s business dealings.
In the meantime, Van Tuyn of the Alaska Wilderness League said a legal challenge to the oil spill response plan in the Arctic is likely.
Oceana’s Sheard maintains that “Shell’s aggressive campaign to get drills into the fragile and remote Arctic waters have reached a new low — filing lawsuits against nonprofit organizations acting in the public interest to protect the environment from risky development.”