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Pat Lavin is an environmental attorney working on climate change and energy issues in the Anchorage, Alaska office of the National Wildlife Federation. When not gazing at the northern lights or Denali from the hot tub on his deck, Pat enjoys running, biking and skiing the trails and mountains around Anchorage and jammin' with his nine year old drummer-son, Orion. But mostly it's the hot tub.
Preserve The Reserve!
As noted here recently, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is taking public comment on how it can best manage the Indiana-sized National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska (Reserve). A sportsman twitter storm last week was abuzz with the answer: protect… Read more >
Alaska Wind Power Project Approved!
The state of Alaska has given the green light to a new 17.6 megawatt wind farm on Fire Island, located a few miles offshore of Anchorage. The long-debated project benefitted from federal stimulus dollars and state support, as well as… Read more >
Latest Murkowski Drill Bill Won’t Protect Arctic Refuge
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has introduced another Arctic Refuge directional drill bill that she claims “should silence any potential controversy over ANWR development.” Here’s how the controversy would be silenced: Allow intrusive seismic testing and surface exploration activities with no mandatory seasonal… Read more >
Shell Oil: More Drilling, Less Regulation!
Shell Oil has proposed to drill ten exploratory wells in the Arctic Ocean in 2012-13, a major expansion of an earlier proposal to drill three wells in 2011. Citing Shell’s “world-class capabilities” and numerous safeguards in place, the company expressed optimism that… Read more >
The Upside-Down, Post-Deepwater Horizon World
Historically, environmental disasters have tended to prompt introspection, learning and some level of commitment to do a better job in the future. When an oil blowout blackened the waters near Santa Barbara in 1969, the nation galvanized in its support… Read more >
