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Offshore oil drilling in the Arctic
High-profile events during the Obama presidency focused attention on the safety of deepwater oil drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the U.S. Following the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Obama designed the Blue Ribbon Commission in Executive Order 13543. The purpose of this bipartisan committee appointed by President Obama was to determine the causes of the blowout and to recommend policies to prevent future disasters. . In May 2013, Obama created the National Strategy for the Arctic Region in response to new challenges faced as the impacts of climate change increasingly altered the Arctic region. The strategy outlined US national security, international cooperation in the Arctic region and environmental stewardship in the Arctic region as the main goals. This strategy was followed in 2014 by the Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for the Arctic Region, whereby each objective of the strategy was outlined with elaborate steps necessary for each goal to be achieved. In this 2014 Implementation Plan, the development of nonrenewable energy resources in the Arctic would be conducted as safely as possible through Federal Government oversight and scientific research and technology. Furthermore, plans to prevent and respond to pollution and spills were proposed between the US and Russia and the US and Canada in order to ensure international coordination in the Arctic. In January 2015, Obama implemented an Executive Order for Enhancing Coordination of National Efforts in the Arctic, whereby he created the Arctic Executive Steering Committee to guide the Implementation Plan and coordinate efforts between different agencies involved in these efforts. In May 2015, hundreds of kayakers, led by a canoer from the Lummi Nation, a Native American tribe in Washington, protested plans to drill for oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea. Opposed to Shell's off-shore Arctic drilling and its impacts on climate and the ocean, they surrounded a drilling rig in waters off Seattle, Washington and prevented its departure. . Their concerns with the impacts of oil drilling in the Arctic are legitimate, as scientific studies uncover that hydrocarbon contaminants from a spill in the Arctic could remain in the water for decades due to the nitrogen, phosphorous and oxygen availability. As a result, microbes that biodegrade petroleum hydrocarbons function slowly. As contaminants remain in the water, they are consumed by the fish, impacting fishing industries and human health. In December 2016, Obama implemented an Executive Order on the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resillience, in which Alaskan Native Tribes were included in policymaking and regulation of drilling in the Arctic region. This executive order included the creation of the Bering Task Force, which held authority in policies regarding Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience, and consulted with the Bering Intergovernmental Tribal Advisory Council to ensure that government officials from Alaskan Native tribes also held auhtority over activities and policies in the Bering Sea. In December, 2016, under the authority of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, Obama released a Presidential Memorandum to Withdraw Certain Areas off the Atlantic Coast on the Outer Continental Shelf from Mineral Leasing. Within the memorandum, Obama removed 26 canyons in US Arctic waters (as well as large portions of the NW Atlantic continental shelf) from the offshore oil program. Ten days after the 2016 presidential election, the Interior Department under the Trump Administration released its 2017-2022 plan for offshore oil and gas leasing in the Arctic. . In 2019, Federal Judge Sharon L. Gleason ruled Trump's reversal of Obama's 2016 withdrawals in the Arctic illegal and Obama's policies were restored.