A coalition of environmental groups petitioned the Interior Department on Wednesday to phase out the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, starting with a climate analysis of the pipeline to assess its contribution to global warming.
Put in service in 1977, the 800-mile pipeline is the primary way to carry oil drilled on Alaska’s North Slope to ports, refineries and pipelines farther south. It’s the lifeline of the state’s crude industry crisscrossing the state’s rugged terrain and keeping oil from freezing in frigid temperatures.
But the petition, inked by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition and four other organizations, notes that TAPS is now two decades past its original 30-year right of way.. TAPS’s age increases its risk of spilling crude oil in the remote Alaska interior, the petitioners argued.
“It’s time for the Department of the Interior to review this nearly 50-year-old aging infrastructure and put a plan in place to decommission it,” said Kay Brown, Arctic policy director at Pacific Environment, one of the signers of the letter. “Alaska can have a thriving economy based on its abundant renewable energy as the world transitions away from fossil fuels.”
