US approves Alaska offshore oil & gas drilling, enraging environmental groups

‘The US arm of a European multinational oil and gas company has been approved to begin exploratory drilling in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea.
Environmentalists argue the Trump administration doesn’t have the authority for such a move and it would endanger land and marine life.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) gave conditional approval late Wednesday to Eni US, the US subsidiary of the Italian company Eni S.p.A., to drill four exploration wells from Spy Island, an artificial island created in the Beaufort Sea in Alaska.
Drilling can only be conducted in the winter months, and is scheduled to begin in December 2017 and end in May 2019, BOEM said. The permit is for preparatory work, and does not authorize Eni to produce oil.’
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