OIL JOINT DEVELOPMENT AFF

Notes:

Thesis to this aff is that even though oil/gas companies are in the process of producing more oil, they can’t because there are restrictions on production (think moratorium) – the plan presents a model of joint development zones to go drill in places where we could not previously (either because of the moratorium or ocean border disputes between the US and other countries like Russia or China in the Arctic region). Drilling more is critical because there’s so much more oil out there – and getting more oil gives the US legislative body more incentive to reduce restrictions on export restrictions (this is the exports advantage) and drilling with “joint economic zones” is key because that establishes a model that is more practical than other clumsy pieces of law like LOST.

Both advantages are defenses of US actionsA) export supply is a reason why the “drilling oil” mechanism of the plan is key (against advantage counterplans or a counterplan to drill something else)B) the hot-spots/Arctic advantage is a reason why the “joint development” mechanism of the plan is key

***ADVANTAGES***

inherency – 1ac

contention 1: inherency ---- the US opened up rig searches but not production of ocean oil production

WINES 2/27/2014 – NYT Contributor (Wines, Michael, FEB. 27, 2014, U.S. Moves Toward Atlantic Oil Exploration, Stirring Debate Over Sea Life, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/us/us-moves-toward-atlantic-oil-exploration-stirring-debate-over-sea-life.html?_r=0)

The Interior Department opened the door on Thursday to the first searches in decades for oil and gas off the Atlantic coast, recommending that undersea seismic surveys proceed, though with a host of safeguards to shield marine life from much of their impact. The recommendation is likely to be adopted after a period of public comment and over objections by environmental activists who say it will be ruinous for the climate and sea life alike. The American Petroleum Institute called the recommendation a critical step

toward bolstering the nation’s energy security, predicting that oil and gas production in the region could create 280,000 new jobs and generate $195 billion in private investment. Activists were livid. Allowing exploration “could be a death sentence for many marine mammals, and is needlessly turning the Atlantic Ocean into a blast zone,” Jacqueline Savitz, a vice president at the conservation group Oceana, said in a statement on Thursday. Oceana and other groups have campaigned for months against the Atlantic survey plans, citing Interior Department calculations that the intense noise of seismic exploration could kill and injure thousands of dolphins and whales. But while the assessment released on Thursday repeats those estimates, it also largely dismisses them, stating that they employ multiple worst-case scenarios and ignore measures by humans and the mammals themselves to avoid harm. Many marine scientists say the estimates of death and injury are at best seriously inflated. “There’s no argument that some of these sounds can harm animals, but it’s blown out of proportion,” Arthur N. Popper, who heads the University of Maryland’s laboratory of aquatic bioacoustics, said in an interview. “It’s the Flipper syndrome, or ‘Free Willy.’ ” How the noise affects sea mammals’ behavior in the long term — an issue about which little is known — is a much greater concern, he said. A formal decision to proceed with surveys would reopen a swath

off the East Coast stretching from Delaware to Cape Canaveral, Fla., that has been closed to petroleum exploration since the early 1980s. Actual drilling of test wells could not begin until a White House ban on production in the Atlantic expires in 2017 , and even then, only after the government agrees to lease ocean tracts to oil companies, an issue officials have barely begun to study. The petroleum industry has sunk 51 wells

off the East Coast — none of them successful enough to begin production — in decades past. But the Interior Department said in 2011 that 3.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 312 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie in the exploration area, and nine companies have already applied for permits to begin surveys. President Obama committed in 2010 to allowing oil and gas surveys along the same stretch of the Atlantic, and the government had planned to lease tracts off the Virginia coast for exploration in 2011. But those plans collapsed after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in April 2010, and the government later banned activity in the area until 2017 .

plan – 1ac

text: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its non-military joint development of crude oil production in the Earth’s oceans

production advantage – 1ac

contention 2 – advantages; advantage 1: exports

drilling for more oil in outer-continental areas to changing the US’s position on exporting crude oil --- can lead to massive exports around the globe

HARDER 2014 – NOIA market analyst (Amy Harder, Crude Debate: Should Washington Lift Oil Export Ban?, January 6, 2014, http://www.noia.org/crude-debate-should-washington-lift-oil-export-ban/)

A federal ban dating back decades that restricts exports of crude oil is suddenly in Washington’s crosshairs. Should we get rid of it? Since 2008, U.S. oil production has increased 56 percent, and our imports have correspondingly fallen to the lowest level since the mid-1990s. In response to this oil boom, refineries have been exporting at record amounts gasoline, diesel, and other products refined from oil , which do not face the same federal restrictions as crude oil. In response to this trend and the broader oil and natural-gas boom, companies including Exxon Mobil and Continental Resources are calling on Congress to lift the ban . Newspapers like The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg News, and Financial Times have made similar statements. Calls to preserve the ban appear to be fewer. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., says lifting the ban would benefit only major oil companies and could end up hurting U.S. drivers in the long run with higher gasoline prices. The ban dates back to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo,

which sent domestic oil prices soaring. In the wake of that incident, Congress decided to restrict exports of crude in most cases as a means to limit future oil-price shocks. In the few cases exports are allowed—mostly to Canada—companies must obtain a specific license from the Commerce Department in order to do so . What are the pros and cons of lifting the ban? Is there a middle ground between leaving it as-is and eliminating it altogether? What should be this debate’s driving factors, such as gasoline prices and economic growth? How could lifting the

ban affect the environment, including, potentially, encouraging more drilling? Do you think Washington has the political appetite to change the law? Or, will this be a debate

with a lot of talk but no action? Randall Luthi Should Washington Lift the Oil Export Ban? The short answer is that such a decision must be accompanied by strategic changes in U.S. policy . Oil should be viewed as a valuable commodity, like corn, wheat, textiles, and manufactured goods ;

all essential to our economic well-being. Talk of increasing exports for any given commodity naturally leads to concern that costs will rise as goods or resources needed here at home become scarce. The oil and gas sector is no different, and this is where the U.S. needs some strategic planning and policy decisions . We need to do more to ensure we have abundant oil and

natural gas resources not just to meet our needs, but to help supply the world as well. To ensure that this energy renaissance continues we must open up more of our offshore areas to oil and natural gas exploration . The onshore natural gas boom has put us on the edge of being able to be an energy exporter, but that effort needs to be complemented by a consistent, reliable energy program that will allow for exploration in federal waters in the Atlantic Ocean, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean and offshore Alaska . Having multiple sources of energy will not only make the U.S. more energy secure, but will provide the cushion we need to be able to export vital energy to the world .

export power is key to resetting international geopolitics --- key to hegemony

MILLS 2012 - adjunct fellow with the Manhattan Institute and Forbes Energy Intelligence columnist, served in President Ronald Reagan’s White House Science Office (Mark, physicist, 7/25/12, “U.S. can become an energy export nation” Politico) http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78978_Page2.html

A number of recent detailed forecasts predict that the U.S. could close in on zero imports if current trends continue. We could finally realize that elusive goal of energy “independence.” In the process, we could add nearly $1 trillion in cumulative federal, state and local government tax

revenues and generate 2 to 4 million new jobs. But independence misses the point in a world craving fuel. We need to become an exporter . The U.S. could, in collaboration with Canada and Mexico similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement, forge policies to encourage hydrocarbon production

and export. That would reset geopolitics. And just starting down that path would really light a fire under job and economic growth. We know sufficient geophysical resources exist to support an export-nation policy. U.S. Geological Survey data reveal that this continent has more than 10,000 billion barrels of oil-equivalent in natural gas, oil and coal. That’s more than four times the resources of the Middle East. We consume only 20 billion of that a year. If we maximized North American hydrocarbon potential, our energy exports to the world could exceed those from the Middle East by 2030. This would add something like $7 trillion to our economies, spur manufacturing as well as research and development investment from the largesse and stimulate millions more high-paying jobs. And it

would send tremors through the fields of the Middle East and Russia. The key to converting resources to producible “reserves” for export lies in advancing technology.

We might even embrace the shocking idea of subsidizing this. But we cannot be an export nation without moving beyond a ball-and-chain regulatory system — including access to the vast swaths of resources under off-limits federal lands. There is no doubt the world will use vastly more hydrocarbons in the future. The only real variables are who will supply all that fuel — and thus who will enjoy the economic and geopolitical benefits. We have the potential to be that leader. If we don’t grab that chance, others will. Expanding North American hydrocarbon production for export may be our most important opportunity for growth — as well as for long-term peace.

energy-based hegemony solves all the reasons why leadership is unsustainable --- solves extinction

Hagel 2012 [Chuck Hagel, Professor at Georgetown University, “The Challenge of Change”, 5/15/12, http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/challenge-change]

A new world order is being built today by seven billion global citizens. America’s responsibilities in this new world and to future generations are as enormous as they are humbling. The challenges and choices before us demand leadership that reaches into the future without stumbling over today. They also require challenging every past frame of reference. Sensing the realities and subtleties of historic change are not always sudden or obvious. As former Secretary of State Dean Acheson recounted, “Only slowly did it dawn upon us that the whole world structure and order that we had inherited from the 19th century was gone and that the struggle to replace it would be directed from two bitterly opposed and ideologically irreconcilable power centers.” Staying a step ahead of the forces of change requires an ability to foresee and appreciate the consequences of our actions, a willingness to learn the hard lessons of history and from our own experiences, and a clear realization of the limitations of great power. Acheson and the Wise Men of that time got it right.

America led the shaping of the post-Second World War world order through strong inspired leadership , a judicious (most of the time) use of its power, and working with allies through alliances and institutions.

This has helped prevent a Third World War and a nuclear holocaust . The world we face in 2012 is of a different character than even a few years ago. Many developing nations are fragile states and are under enormous pressure from terrorism, endemic poverty, environmental challenges, debt, corruption, civil unrest, and regional, tribal, and religious conflicts . The result is a climate of despair, and potential breeding grounds for radical politics and extremism. A successful American foreign policy must include thinking through actions and policies, and how uncontrollable and unpredictable global forces may affect outcomes. Eleven years of invasions and

occupations have put the U.S. in a deep hole and mired us down in terribly costly commitments in blood, treasure, and prestige. Our diplomatic and security flexibility has been seriously eroded by many of the decisions of the last eleven years. Too often we tend to confuse tactical action for strategic thinking. A matter of mutual understanding American foreign policy has always required

a principled realism that is true to our values as we face the world as it really is in all of its complexities. We need to accept the reality that there is not a short-term solution to every problem in the world. What we must do is manage these realities and complex problems, moving them into positions of solution possibilities and resolution. American foreign policy has always dared to project a vision of a world where all

things are possible. If we are to succeed, we must understand how the world sees us. Turn on our receivers more often and shut off our transmitters. This is a vital priority for a successful 21st century foreign policy. We must also avoid the traps of hubris, ideology and insularity, and know that there is little margin for error with the stakes so high in the world today. America must strengthen its global alliances. Common-

interest alliances will be required in a volatile world of historic diffusions of power. The great challenges facing the world today are the responsibility of all peoples of the world. They include cyber warfare, terrorism, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts , prosperity and stability , and global poverty, disease and environmental degradation. Our allies throughout the world share these same challenges and threats and will also be just as affected by the outcomes. These will be either our common successes or our common failures. America cannot be successful with any of these challenges, without sustained partnerships and deep cooperation in the economic, intelligence, diplomatic, humanitarian, military and law enforcement fields. The centrality of alliances and multi-lateral institutions to a successful foreign policy is fundamental. Alliances and multi-lateral institutions must be understood as expansions of our influence, not as constraints on our power. Alliances are imperfect, as are all institutions. But like “process,” they help absorb shocks. Beyond military solutions Alliances must be built on solid

foundations to handle both routine and sudden unforeseen challenges. Crisis-driven “coalitions of the willing” by themselves are not the building blocks for a stable world. We need to think more broadly, deeply and strategically. American military power and force structure cannot sustain its commitments without a shift to a more comprehensive strategic approach to global threats and a more flexible and agile military. Cyber warfare is a paramount example of these new threats. The perception of American power around the world must not rest solely on a military orientation or optic. There must be an underlying commitment to engagement and humanity. Engagement is not appeasement, nor is it negotiation. It is not a guarantee of anything, but rather a smart diplomatic bridge to better understanding and possible conflict resolution. American foreign policy must reflect the realities and demands of the global

economy. The global economy cannot be shut out of foreign policy. There can be no higher priority for America than to remain economically competitive in a world undergoing a historic diffusion of economic power. A nation’s strength is anchored to and underpinned by its economic strength. The connections between America’s trade, economic, and energy policies must also be synthesized into a strategic vision for American foreign policy that not only meets the challenges of our time, but frames the completeness of long-term policies for strategic future outcomes. Trade is a major catalyst for economic strength and growth at home and abroad, as well as a critical stabilizer for

world peace and prosperity. America must remain the global champion of free, fair and open trade. As the world’s strongest, largest and most dynamic economy, America must continue to lead world

trade. Economic strength must be as high a priority as any other foreign policy priority. America’s security and growth are connected to both the American and global economies. A centerpiece of this security is

energy security. Energy security and energy interdependence are interconnected parts of a broad and deep foreign policy paradigm that frames the complexity of the challenges that face America and the world . A diverse portfolio of energy that is accessible and affordable is the core of America’s energy security . Much of the world’s energy is produced in countries and regions that are consumed by civil unrest, lack of human rights, corruption, underdevelopment, and conflict. The price of oil is driven by supply and demand and the global market. We must ensure diversification of

sources of supply and distribution networks to prevent undue dependence on any one country or region. Instability and violence disrupt supply and distribution and increase prices.

the plan would ends interventionary wars --- solves all the reasons why hegemony is bad

SCHWARK 2012 (Sebastian, associate director of Hill-Knowlton strategies, communications Strategist, Energy Specialist, 8/13/12, “e-Ideas (1): Politics and Walter Russell Mead’s Looming Energy Revolution” The Energy Collective) http://theenergycollective.com/sebastian-schwark/102696/e-ideas-1-politics-and-walter-russell-mead-s-looming-energy-revolution

This geopolitical shift will stabilize the liberal global order , stimulate global economic growth, and allow the potential rivalry between the U.S. and China to become ever more cooperative. Because energy was critical to the first American century, Mead continues, and since the energy abundance that propelled the U.S. to global leadership is back , a new American century is in the making. A less Middle East-centric foreign policy will allow the U.S. to become more of the benevolent hegemon it has been after World War II, securing the liberal capitalist global order, rather than fighting wars in the sands Iraq.

independently, energy abundance is key to prevent oil volatility which sparks great power war --- forces U.S. intervention and goes nuclear

KING 2008 (Neil, Peak Oil: A Survey of Security Concerns, Center for a New American Security, p. 14-17)

Many commentators in the United States and abroad have begun to wrestle with the question of whether soaring oil prices and market volatility could spark an outright oil war between major powers —possibly ignited not by China or Russia, but by the U nited States. In a particularly pointed speech on the topic in May, James Russell of the Naval Postgraduate School in California addressed what he called the increasing militarization of international energy security. “Energy security is now

deemed so central to ‘national security’ that threats to the former are liable to be reflexively interpreted as threats to the latter,” he told a gathering at the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at

Houston’s Rice University.6 The possibility that a large-scale war could break out over access to dwindling energy resources , he wrote, “is one of the most alarming prospects facing the current world system .”7 Mr. Russell figures among a growing pool of analysts who worry in particular about the psychological readiness of the U nited States to deal rationally with a sustained oil shock . Particularly troubling is the increasing perception within Congress that the financial side of the oil markets no longer functions rationally. It has either been taken over by speculators or is being manipulated, on the supply side, by producers who are holding back on pumping more oil in order

to drive up the price. A breakdown in trust for the oil markets , these analysts fear, could spur calls for government action—even military intervention . “The perceptive chasm in the United States between new [oil] market realities and their impact on the global distribution of power will one day close,” Mr. Russell said. “And when it does, look out.”8 The World at Peak: Taking the Dim View For years, skeptics scoffed at predictions that the United States would hit its own domestic oil production peak by sometime in the late 1960s. With its oil fields pumping full out, the U.S. in 1969 was providing an astonishing 25 percent of the world’s oil supply—a role no other country has ever come close to matching. U.S. production then peaked in December 1970, and has fallen steadily ever since, a shift that has dramatically altered America’s own sense of vulnerability and reordered its military priorities. During World War II, when its allies found their own oil supplies cut off by the war, the United States stepped in and made up the difference. Today it is able to meet less than a third of its own needs. A similar peak in worldwide production would have far more sweeping consequences. It would, for one, spell the end of the world’s unparalleled economic boom over the last century. It would also dramatically reorder the wobbly balance of power between nations as energy-challenged industrialized countries turn their sights on the oil-rich nations of the Middle East and Africa. In a peak oil future, the small, flattened, globalized world that has awed recent commentators would become decidedly round and very vast again. Oceans will reemerge as a hindrance to trade, instead of the

conduit they have been for so long. An energy -born jolt to the world economy would leave no corner of the globe untouched. Unable to pay their own fuel bills, the tiny Marshall Islands this summer faced the

possibility of going entirely without power. That is a reality that could sweep across many of the smallest and poorest countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America , reversing many of the tentative gains in those regions and stirring deep social unrest . Large patches of the world rely almost entirely on diesel-powered generators for what skimpy electricity they now have. Those generators are the first to run empty as prices soar. A British parliamentary report released in June on “The Impact of Peak Oil on International Development” concluded that “the deepening energy crisis has the potential to make poverty a permanent state for a growing number of people, undoing the development efforts of a generation.”9 We are seeing some of the

consequences already in Pakistan – a country of huge strategic importance, with its own stash of nuclear weapons – that is now in the grips of a severe energy crisis . By crippling the country’s economy, battering the stock market, and spurring mass protests, Pakistan’s power shortages could end up giving the country’s Islamic parties the leverage they have long needed to take power . It’s not hard to imagine similar scenarios playing out in dozens of other developing countries. Deepening economic unrest will put an enormous strain on the United Nations and other international aid agencies. Anyone who has ever visited a major UN relief hub knows that their fleets of Land Rovers, jumbo jets and prop planes have a military size thirst for fuel. Aid agency budgets will come under unprecedented pressure just as the need for international aid skyrockets and donor countries themselves feel pressed for cash. A peaking of oil supplies could also hasten the impact of global climate change by dramatically driving up the use of coal for power generation in much of the world. A weakened world economy would also put in jeopardy the massively expensive projects, such as carbon capture and storage, that many experts look to for a reduction in industrial emissions. So on top of the strains caused by scarce fossil fuels, the world may also have to grapple with the destabilizing

effects of more rapid desertification, dwindling fisheries, and strained food supplies. An oil-constricted world will also stir perilous frictions between haves and have- nots. The vast majority of all the world’s known oil reserves is now in the hands of national oil companies, largely in countries with corrupt and autocratic governments. Many of these governments—Iran and Venezuela top the list—are now seen as antagonists of the U nited States. Tightened oil supplies will substantially boost these countries’ political leverage, but that enhanced power will carry its own peril. Playing the oil card when nations are scrambling for every barrel will be a far more serious matter that at any time in the past. The European continent could also undergo a profound shift as its needs—and sources of energy—diverge all the more from those of the United States. A conservation-oriented Europe (oil demand is on the decline in almost every EU country) will look all the more askance at what it sees as the gluttonous habits of the United States. At the same time, Europe’s governments may have little choice but to shy from any political confrontations with its principal energy supplier, Russia. An energy-restricted future will greatly enhance Russia’s clout within settings like the UN Security Council but also in its dealings with both Europe and China. Abundant oil and gas have fueled Russia’s return to power over the last decade, giving it renewed standing within the UN and increasing sway over European capitals. The peak oil threat is already sending shivers through the big developing countries of China and India, whose

propulsive growth (and own internal stability) requires massive doses of energy. For Beijing, running low on fuel spells economic chaos and internal strife , which in

turn spawns images of insurrection and a breaking up of the continent sized country. Slumping oil supplies will automatically pit the two largest energy consumers—the U nited States and China —against one another in competition over supplies in South America, West Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. China is already taking this competition very seriously. It doesn’t require much of a leap to imagine a Cold War-style scramble between Washington and Beijing—not for like-minded allies this time but simply for reliable and

tested suppliers of oil. One region that offers promise and peril in almost equal measure is the Artic, which many in the oil industry consider the last big basin of untapped hydrocarbon riches. But

the Artic remains an ungoverned ocean whose legal status couldn’t be less clear, especially so long as the United States continues to remain outside the international Law of the Sea Treaty. As the ices there recede, the risk increases that a scramble for assets in the Artic could turn nasty .

hotspots advantage – 1ac

advantage 2: hot spots

arctic drilling inevitable—no barriers

Smith 2010 – associate with Covington & Burling L.L.P.(Angelle C. Smith, J.D. from George Washington Law School, “Frozen Assets: Ownership of Arctic Mineral Rights Must Be Resolved to Prevent the Really Cold War”, George Washington International Law Review, Vol. 41, 2010)

While global warming will melt enough of the polar ice cap to make the extraction and transportation of undersea oil and gas more readily available by 2030-2040, 69 the Russians and Norwegians have demonstrated that drilling in the Arctic is already possible . Russia , facing harsh conditions such as temperatures as low as negative fifty degrees Celsius, is preparing to drill in Arctic offshore fields in the Barents and Kara Seas. 70 Meanwhile, the Norwegians have successfully inaugurated the offshore fields of the bitterly cold East Arctic. 71 Ending speculation that harsh conditions and tech nological limitations would prevent drilling in the Arctic for many years to come, Norway’s state-owned Statoil brought offshore gas facilities online in 2007. 72 After twenty-five years of “false starts, planning and construction,” the Snohvit 73 facility is fully operational in the Barents Sea . 74 Statoil expects Snohvit to yield $1.4 billion of

liquefied natural gas (LNG) each year for the next twenty-five years. 75 Snohvit demonstrates Statoil’s success developing the “skills and technology necessary to successfully drill in the Arctic.” 76

but escalation is guaranteed absent US involvement --- plan sends a credible signal to resolve tensions which could cause global damage

SLAYTON AND ROSEN 3/14/2014 - * Slayton is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-chair of the Hoover Institution's Arctic Security Initiative AND ** Rosen is an international and national security lawyer by training, is a senior legal adviser at CNA Corporation (Slayton, David. Rosen, Mark. Another region where the Russian military threatens to dominate the U.S. March 14, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/opinion/slayton-rosen-russia-u-s-arctic/index.html)

(CNN) -- While much of the world is focused on the Russian incursion into the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine, another long-term move may allow the former Soviet navy to dominate U.S. interests to the north: the Arctic. The rapid melting of the Arctic Ocean is quickly creating a new variety of challenges that have the potential to cause significant global damage if they remain unaddressed. The Obama administration's policy correctly recognizes that the United States has profoundly important economic and cultural interests in the Arctic but regrettably reveals very little about what the federal government will be doing outside of the science field. While recent U.S. policies either dance around the core issues, or worse, do not acknowledge that they exist, the Russians are taking the lead on Arctic policy. After all, the Arctic is in their backyard, too . Moreover, Russia -- as if to highlight the value they place on their navy and renaissance as a maritime nation -- took control of the strategic Crimean Peninsula, assuring and securing warm water Russian Navy access to the global commons. In light of these recent events, it would be wise for Washington to seriously consider the economic potential and security vulnerabilities that exist on or near the U.S. Arctic coastline. Overwhelmingly, the U.S. Arctic policy debate echoes past concerns of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Consequently, many in the policy community are pushing a heavy science and no-development agenda to

preserve the pristine character of the region. The recently issued Department of Defense Arctic Strategy is a case in point: It talks extensively about the DOD scientific mission and uses the terms "sustainable development" and preservation of the unspoiled area as important national goals. But just saying "no" ignores the fact that the precious Arctic mineral and oil and gas resources will help assure the United States is able , over time, to achieve and then maintain its energy independence . Science is incredibly important, as is safe and responsible development of the Arctic, but our agencies and scientists need to approach these issues with a greater sense of urgency. Arguably, the science needs to be a component of a detailed national

action, but that's only a fraction of good U.S. policy. U.S. Arctic policy should prioritize four things : One: Demonstrate leadership in the Arctic and develop a strategy and policy to match. The U.S. has no leadership in the high north and Russia does, which is a great concern for our allies. Two: Invest in infrastructure , Navy and Coast Guard to support U.S. security and commercial interests in the Arctic. The key here is to develop the policy that drives those requirements so we are not "late to need." Three: Demonstrate leadership in the maritime domain worldwide -- and not retreat as we are doing by default in the Arctic . Four: Facilitate and further develop offshore natural resources in the high north/Alaska and the national, international, maritime and geopolitical governance structures that will underpin those enterprises. Washington, in less than two years , will assume a leadership role when it becomes Chair for the Arctic Council. Unfortunately, the DOD policy and U.S. Navy Arctic Roadmap 2014 do not articulate what the U.S. Arctic leadership agenda will entail. The reality is ignoring the issues and choosing not to participate in the Arctic will not make the issues go away. Yes, budgets are challenging, but the Arctic is no different from any other international frontier or global common where the U.S. has interests. We need to protect it and demonstrate leadership in the maritime domain -- not retreat. So, too, our policy makers need to be looking beyond our shores to

Moscow, Ottawa, Oslo, Copenhagen, the Arctic Council, international oil companies and Lloyds of London for help in solving this governance challenge. The last thing that any of

the Arctic states can afford is to back into a Russian-generated crisis with no resources or a plan. The time is now for more U.S. leadership to ensure the Arctic becomes a safe, secure and prosperous region in which to live and work.

effective dispute resolution models key to de-escalate miscalculation

Smith 2010 – associate with Covington & Burling L.L.P.(Angelle C. Smith, J.D. from George Washington Law School, “Frozen Assets: Ownership of Arctic Mineral Rights Must Be Resolved to Prevent the Really Cold War”, George Washington International Law Review, Vol. 41, 2010)

Forget the Cold War; the really cold war is lurking . The looming debate over the natural resources in the Arctic is primed to explode . The glacial Arctic waters that harbored U.S. and Soviet submarines during the Cold War 1 may prove to be a battleground again if nothing is done to determine who has jurisdiction over the vast mineral deposits in the Arctic. Allocation of mineral rights in the Arctic is becoming increasingly important as global warming eases access to the area, the global demand for energy continues to rise, and advances in technology make extraction of these minerals possible. 2 The harmonization of these three factors, coupled with competing international claims to the Arctic’s continental shelf, may yield a dispute of epic proportions to conclusively determine which nation, or nations, has the best claim to the untapped natural resources beneath the Arctic seabed. The Arctic region , specifically the North Pole, contains significant oil and gas reserves. Based on recent estimates, this area may contain close to twenty-five percent of the world’s “ undiscovered ” oil and natural gas resources . 3 Given the mineral potential of the area, the time to settle ownership of the Arctic seabed is now . And the countries with competing claims know this . The Russian Federation recently planted a flag on the North Pole, 4 Canada

plans to build an Arctic military force, 5 and the other Arctic coastal states —Denmark (through Greenland6 ), Norway, and the United States—are all seeking to establish an Arctic presence . 7 As one commentator noted, the Arctic is “ a perfect storm seeded with political opportunism, national pride, military muscle flexing, high energy prices and the arcane exigencies of international law.” 8 Facially, it appears that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a comprehensive international maritime treaty establishing rights, responsibilities, and procedures for settling claims in the

world’s oceans and seas, should be the proper mechanism to determine jurisdiction in the Artic. 9 UNCLOS, however, is not a viable option because not all of the interested parties have ratified the treaty and the UNCLOS component that recommends limits of the continental shelf has not achieved the status of customary international law. 10 While the United Nations should take steps to address these shortfalls, it is highly unlikely that any amendment to the present regime will be proposed and accepted before anarchy on the high Arctic seas ensues. UNCLOS ,

therefore, is not the answer.

Joint development zones key to resolving Arctic disputes peacefully --- best model

Jelinski ’10 – MA Candidate at the University of British Columbia(Cameron, “Diplomacy and the Lomonosov Ridge: Prospects for International Cooperation in the ¶ Arctic”, University of British Columbia, August, 2010, https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/28128/ubc_2010_fall_jelinski_cameron.pdf?sequence=1)

While this paper focuses on interim solutions that may help lead to final delimitation of ¶ boundaries, it is important to mention in brief the possibilities for alternative solutions. As ¶ noted in the discussion above, the more conventional approach is for countries to enter into ¶ bilateral or multilateral delimitation negotiations in order to determine the final boundaries ¶ between them. As Vivian Forbes asserts, ―[t]he settlement of boundary disputes involving ¶ resources has traditionally centred on the demarcation of specific lines ... dividing the ¶ disputed resource area between the States involved.‖¶ xcvi¶ In addition to this approach, ¶ however, another option exists—one that has been adopted by several countries worldwide ¶ when faced with continental shelf delimitation disagreements. Specifically, it is possible for ¶ two or more states to effectively share jurisdiction indefinitely, by enacting arrangements ¶ that are variously called J oint D evelopment Z ones, areas, or regimes. Joint development has ¶ been defined as ―cooperation between States with regard to the exploration for and ¶ exploitation of certain deposits ... of non-living resources , which ... lie in an area of ¶ overlapping claims.‖¶ xcvii¶

It is informative to examine in brief several existing examples of ¶ joint development before discussing the prospects of such a regime in the central Arctic ¶ Ocean.¶ A number of joint development regimes exist in various situations of maritime or ¶ continental shelf delimitation disputes worldwide, such that Forbes posits that these regimes ¶ ―have gained universal

acceptance.‖¶ xcviii¶ An oft-cited example concerns the overlapping ¶ claims to the continental shelf that existed between Australia and Indonesia, and now ¶ between Australia and East Timor.¶ xcix¶ After years of disagreement over control of the 29¶ resources in this area, Australia and Indonesia reached in 1989 ―an elaborate compromise: ¶ the two sides set aside the question of permanent boundaries and agreed, instead, to the ¶ establishment of a zone of joint development‖ under which any government revenues from ¶ petroleum exploitation were equally shared by the two countries.¶ c¶ Thus, while this agreement ¶ did not determine final areas of exclusive sovereignty, it did effectively neutralize a ¶ longstanding dispute by creating an arrangement that could be adhered to indefinitely. In ¶ other words, while final delimitation was not achieved, delimitation was no longer seen as a ¶ pressing matter as long as the joint development agreement was respected. When East Timor ¶ gained independence from Indonesia, it renegotiated the treaty in such a way that the concept ¶ of joint development was maintained, albeit in a manner far more beneficial to this small ¶ developing country.¶ ci¶ In another example, Thailand and Malaysia formally created a Joint Development Area ¶ (JDA) in 1990.¶ cii¶ Forbes points out that the two countries’ belief that hydrocarbon resources ¶ existed in the area made delimitation more difficult, but that the perceived ―economic ¶ benefits‖ of exploitation was a driving factor behind the states’ willingness to pursue a joint ¶ development arrangement.¶ ciii¶ This factor may be relevant in the case of the central Arctic ¶ Ocean, as discussed below. Finally, a third example of joint development may be mentioned ¶ – this one on the southern fringes of the Arctic. In 1980, when negotiations on a maritime ¶ boundary between Iceland and Jan Mayen (Norway) failed to delimit the continental shelf, a ¶ Conciliation Commission recommended the creation of a joint development zone for ―an ¶ area of the shelf which had the greatest resource potential.‖¶ civ¶ Since adopting the ¶ recommendations, cooperation between the two states typically ―takes the form of joint ¶ venture contracts.‖¶ cv¶ In short, then, the concept of joint development is well-established in 30¶ relations between countries, and in several cases has effectively removed from contention ¶ disputes over the continental shelf.¶ In light of these concrete examples, it is possible to discuss the feasibility of a joint ¶ development regime as a method of defusing any disputes in the central Arctic Ocean. On the ¶ one hand, some of the factors that seem to facilitate joint development are present in the ¶ central Arctic Ocean, including areas of potentially overlapping claims, belief that resources ¶ may be found in these areas, and a history of some cooperation. Therefore, if eventual ¶ delimitation negotiations are found to be intractable, a joint development regime in the Arctic ¶ could attain the benefits that such regimes have facilitated elsewhere, particularly by ¶ providing ―a management tool in situations which otherwise would lead to disputes and ¶ confrontations.‖¶ cvi¶ Such a regime could be established through a series of bilateral ¶ agreements, or through one multilateral agreement. ¶ On the other hand, however, it was noted above that the perceived economic benefits of ¶ joint exploitation were in at least one case a major factor behind the push for a joint ¶ development area.¶ cvii¶ Given that few oil and gas resources may exist in the area of potential ¶ overlap, and that their exploitation would be very costly, the drive for a joint development ¶ zone may be less urgent along the

Lomonosov Ridge in the near term. It should be noted, ¶ however, that while resource exploitation is typically the main reason for joint development ¶ regimes of shared jurisdiction, other issues may be covered by such agreements. For ¶ example, Francisco Orrego Vicuna points out that some agreements on shared development ¶ jurisdiction ―have included clauses on

cooperation regarding living resources, the ¶ environment, scientific research, search and rescue, and other issues.‖¶ cviii¶ Thus, even if 31¶ shared resource exploitation does not present an immediately compelling reason for pursuing ¶ a zone of joint jurisdiction, such an agreement could also increase the possibility of ¶

cooperation on other matters in the central Arctic Ocean . It should be noted as well that as in ¶ the case of a provisional delimitation arrangement, more information on the seabed may be ¶ needed

in the central Arctic Ocean before the establishment of a joint development regime is ¶ feasible.¶ In short, then, several potential forms of political cooperation could be pursued in the ¶

central Arctic Ocean. In an assertion that addresses potential concerns about the difficulties ¶ of diplomatic relations, Riddell-Dixon argues that ―[t]he prospects of dealing with [probable ¶ overlaps] in an orderly manner appear promising in light

of the high degree of cooperation ¶ evident in Canada’s relations with Denmark, the United States, and Russia in the ¶ preparations of their respective submissions.‖¶ cix While she does not advocate one form of ¶

cooperation or another, by formalizing such cooperation by means of a joint or coordinated ¶ submission, through a provisional delimitation agreement, or potentially through A J oint ¶ D evelopment Z one in the future, the concerned states could further enhance the prospects of ¶ dealing with overlaps peacefully and fairly .

economics will control military escalationConley 12 (Heather – Senior Fellow at CSIS and Director, Europe Program, “A New Security Architecture for the Arctic”, January, http://csis.org/files/publication/120117_Conley_ArcticSecurity_Web.pdf)The Arctic will experience extraordinary economic and environmental change over the next several decades. Commercial, human, and state

interaction will rise dramatically. More drilling for oil and gas in the region and growing shipping and ecotourism as new shipping routes come into existence are just a few of the examples of increased human activity in the Arctic. The rapid melting of the Arctic ice cap is now exceeding previous scientific and climatic predictions. A recent study shows that September 2011 marked the lowest levels of sea ice extent ever recorded in the northern polar region.1 The polar ice cap today is 40 percent smaller than it was in 1979,2 and in the summer of 2007 alone, 1 million more square miles of ice beyond the average melted, uncovering an area of open water six times the size of California. While estimates range from 2013 to 2060, the U.S. Navy’s “Arctic Roadmap” projects ice-free conditions for a portion of

the Arctic by the summer of 2030.3 Arctic economics and an increasingly ice-free and hostile climatic environment are on a direct collision course, driving a clear need for a new paradigm to meet pressing security challenges that Arctic nations have thus far been unprepared or ill equipped to address. As the region takes on greater economic importance, the Arctic requires a comprehensive regional and global security strategy that includes

an increase in regional readiness and border security as well as an enhancement of strategic capabilities. The security challenges are vast , includ ing search

and rescue, environmental remediation , piracy, terrorism, natural and man-made disaster response , and border protection. Compounding the challenge is the fact that regional players must function in an operational environment of severely limited satellite communication and hydrographic mapping. Arctic coastal states have developed and issued national Arctic security strategies and accompanying documents that, albeit roughly, sketch out their political and security priorities in the region. These documents describe their national security interests and the intentions these states wish to pursue and defend. Each of the five Arctic coastal states—Canada, Denmark via Greenland, Norway, Russia, and the United States—touts its commitment to cooperative action while simultaneously bolstering its military presence and capabilities in the Arctic. Yet the complexity of competing national security interests is heightened by the lack of a

single coherent structure through which these concerns can be addressed. Therefore, a fresh approach is needed for addressing regional Arctic security concerns within a global framework, while recognizing the mutual benefits of maintaining international cooperation, transparency, and stability in the Arctic. Creating a twenty-first century security architecture for the Arctic presents the United States with a conundrum: U.S. Arctic policy must be given a significant sense of urgency and focus at the same moment that U.S. defense budgets are being reduced and U.S. military planners consider the Arctic to be “an area of low

conflict.” How does one economically and militarily square this circle? Unfortunately, while there have been some international debate and discussion on the form and format of Arctic security cooperation, the debate has often focused on what issues related to Arctic security cannot be discussed rather than on those that can and should be addressed. However, these institutional and policy barriers have begun to break down as actors recognize both a collective lack of operational capacity and the increasing number of security actors that will play a role in this rapidly changing region. Arctic stakeholders have yet to discuss seriously, let alone determine, what collective security framework Arctic states should use to address the emerging security challenges in the region, despite signing legally binding agreements on international search and rescue and negotiating international agreements on oil spills and response. It is within this context that the following report will analyze the drivers of change in the region, examine the key

Arctic security actors and institutions, and explore the potential for a new security architecture for the Arctic. Oil and Gas As the sea ice retreats, new commercial opportunities in the Arctic arise. Natural resources that had once been unreachable are becoming available for extraction . As the

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates, the Arctic is projected to contain 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil resources and 30 percent of the gas resources.1 Because global production of oil and gas will not match global demand and the short-term outlook for the price of oil and gas will increase,2 the desire to tap these resources in the Arctic will spur commercial exploration, and

multinational companies will invest and become increasingly engaged in the region. At the same time, the need to develop new technologies and approaches for tackling the harsh and unpredictable climate for offshore drilling and transportation in the Arctic is urgent. The greater the potential profit and need to secure supply while maintaining, if not increasing, current production levels, the greater the tendency will be for companies to assume the greater risks inherent in operating in the Arctic. Alaska has contributed significantly to meeting U.S. demand with oil from the oil fields on the North Slope close to the Arctic coast transported through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. However, due to decreasing North Slope production and a lack of new fields, domestic pressure to explore offshore of Alaska is rising. Royal Dutch Shell has received preliminary approval from the Obama administration for its offshore drilling plans in its acquired leases in the Beaufort Sea. Exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea is expected to commence in 2012.3 Shell is also optimistic that it can begin to develop the reserves in the Chukchi Sea in the near future, but issues with environmental leases, oil spill preparedness and response, and disputes with local communities threaten to delay the process.4 Other Arctic coastal states are seeking similar economic advantage . In Norway, leases to the Barents Sea have been allocated, as Norwegian oil and gas production has fallen since its peak of 3.4 million barrels per day in 20015 and is expected to decline further if no significant new fields are discovered. Increased demand from the European market has spurred additional exploratory drilling farther north. Seismic activity by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate6 has already started in the maritime territory obtained after the Norwegian-Russian maritime delimitation treaty entered into effect in July 2011.7 With the largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and Arctic coast line, Russia is increasingly interested i n developing its potential fields , especially on the

prosperous continental shelf next to the Novaya Zemlya archipelago and in the Kara Sea. Russia is moving to increase gas production in the vast Yamal field, which already produces 90 percent of Russian state gas, following recent discoveries of large gas fields, such as the Bovanenkovo field.8 In addition, Russia has been active in expanding oil production in the Pechora Sea, with plans for drilling in the Prirazlomnoye oil field in early 20129—a significant development as it marks the first instance of offshore drilling in the Russian Arctic.10 Russia also plans to drill in the Dolginskoye oil field in the Pechora Sea, which is projected to be three times as large as the Prirazlomnoye, and aims to have the field developed by 2020.11 Numerous delays—from the large supply of gas available on the global

market due to the discovery of unconventional gas in the United States and uncertainty over Russian taxation policies—have to this point prevented the development of the world’s largest gas field, the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea, forcing new technological developments and seismic

exploration in other parts of the Russian Arctic territory. All of this activity indicates the keen interest both countries have in moving rapidly to extract these resources from their Arctic territories.

solvency – 1ac

contention 3: solvency

the plan establishes a model for international joint development zones ----- comparatively outweighs the rest of the country

BLYSCHAK 2013 – practises energy and corporate/commercial law in Calgary with a focus on international transactions (Paul Michael Blyschak, Offshore oil and gas projects amid maritime border disputes: applicable law, J World Energy Law Bus (2013) 6 (3): 210-233. doi: 10.1093/jwelb/jwt008)

KEY:CLCS = Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf UNCLOS = United Nations Convention On the Law Of the SeaJDA = Joint Development Agreement/Area

Offshore oil and gas projects face numerous technical and legal risks not typically encountered in onshore exploration and production activities. Among these risks is the possibility that the relevant licence/concession area in which an oil and gas company is entitled to explore and/or produce falls within or near an area subject to an international maritime border dispute. Maritime border disputes have received increased attention in recent years as technological advances allow both companies and governments to evaluate the untapped potential of offshore resources (consider , for instance, the renewed race between arctic nations to establish and expand territorial rights to the

arctic seabed, discussed further below).1 Maritime border disputes may have consequences on the extent and nature of exploration and production rights and the corresponding ability of upstream oil and gas companies to carry out operations within the relevant licence/concession area .

Furthermore, such consequences may arise both while a dispute is ongoing and following resolution of the dispute. Unless appropriate mitigation strategies are considered in preparing the relevant legal documentation for such projects, not only may the border dispute decrease or nullify the value of the licence/concession area, but may in some circumstances even result in adverse claims by governments, joint venture partners, contractors and other interest holders . Before such risk mitigation is possible, however, a firm understanding of all potentially

applicable law is necessary. This article therefore surveys various different sources of such law, including (1) the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, being the pre-eminent international agreement pertaining to maritime territorial disputes; (2) the law applicable to the exploration and exploitation of offshore oil and gas resources under joint development agreements negotiated amid maritime territorial disputes; and (3) the law applicable to the exploration of offshore oil and gas resources amid

unresolved maritime territorial disputes pursuant to relevant international case law. Previous Section Next Section 2. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea The continental shelf and the area No other instrument or body of law is as fundamental to a discussion of international maritime border disputes as is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which was concluded

in 1982 and entered into force in 1994.2 Among other things, UNCLOS provides that the sovereign right of each maritime State to explore and exploit the natural resources of the seabed extends 200 nautical miles from its shoreline [referred to as that State’s ‘continental shelf’ or ‘exclusive economic zone’ (EEZ)],3 save where such territory overlaps with the maritime territory of another maritime State. Furthermore, this is the case regardless of the distance a State’s continental shelf extends from its coastline. As provided by UNCLOS Article 76(1): [t]he continental shelf of a coastal State comprises the sea-bed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental shelf, or to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured where the outer edge of the continental margin does not extend up to that distance.4 UNCLOS provides that coastal States need not actively explore their continental shelf or exploit the natural resources contained therein in order to preserve their exclusive right to do so.5 UNCLOS further provides that the rights of coastal States over their continental shelf ‘do not depend on occupation, effective or notional, or on any express proclamation’.6 Finally, UNCLOS provides that coastal States ‘shall have the exclusive right to authorise and regulate oil and gas drilling on the continental shelf for all purposes’.7 Part XI of UNCLOS governs resource exploration activities in what is termed the ‘Area’, which is defined by Article 1(1) of UNCLOS to be ‘the seabed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof, that is beyond the limits of national jurisdiction’. Articles 136 and 137 provide that the Area and its resources are the common heritage of mankind and that no State shall claim sovereignty or sovereign rights over any resources in the Area, all such rights being vested in mankind as a whole. Further, rights with respect to minerals recovered from the Area can only be claimed, acquired or exercised in accordance with Part XI. Article 150 sets out a number of policies regarding activities in the Area that include statements that, among other policy goals, activities in the Area will be carried out with a view to the development of its resources in an orderly, safe and rational manner. In order to accomplish these policy goals, Article 156 of UNCLOS establishes the International Seabed Authority (the ‘Authority’), an organization meant to act on behalf of mankind as a whole with regard to the administration of resources in the Area.8 The Authority is intended to exercise control over activities carried on in the Area to ensure compliance with Part XI of UNCLOS, including the right to inspect all installations in the Area that are used in connection with activities in the Area.9 Article 82 of UNCLOS requires coastal states to make payments or contributions in respect of the exploitation of non-living resources of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from their territorial seas, which payments or contributions are to be made to the Authority.10 The Authority shall then distribute these payments or contributions to UNCLOS parties ‘on the basis of equitable sharing criteria, taking into account the interests and needs of developing States, particularly the least developed and the land-locked among them’.11 Towards this end, Article 82 of UNCLOS has inspired much question and commentary, including, in particular, in respect of how it is likely to be implemented.12 For example, as Article 82(1) is clear that resource payments to the Authority are the responsibility of the subject coastal State rather

than industry, the manner in which such payments will be recouped by States from industry seems likely to vary from State to State according to yet to be determined national policy, legislation and regulation.13 Numerous other uncertainties remain , many of which result from less than precise or comprehensive drafting . Referring simply to ‘payments and contributions’ to be made with respect

to ‘the value or volume of production at the site’, it is not clear whether UNCLOS Article 82(1)’s payment obligation is intended to be interpreted as a royalty on production or some form of tax or duty.14 Similarly, if in fact a production royalty is intended to be a ‘gross’ royalty or a ‘net’ royalty which allows for the deduction of certain costs before its application.15 Can it be paid in kind?16 And, in respect of oil and gas exploration and production, when will it first be due: Year 6 after first oil or Year 6 after first commercial production of oil?17 These are matters UNCLOS’s drafters and signatories would do well to clarify ‘sooner rather than later in order to avoid potential future disputes over the interpretation and application of the Article as well as to provide certainty to industry anxious to promote activities on the continental shelf’.18 The CLCS and the ‘Race for the Arctic’ Importantly, Article 76 of UNCLOS provides that in certain circumstances the continental shelf of a State may extend beyond 200 nautical miles of a baseline and thus extend the sovereignty of a State past this point to encompass such ‘outer-continental shelf’ territory. Towards this end, Article 76 establishes the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). As stated in Annex II of UNCLOS, the purpose of the CLCS is to ‘consider the data and other material submitted by coastal States concerning the outer limits of the continental shelf in areas where those limits extend beyond 200 nautical miles, and to make recommendations in accordance with Article 76 and the Statement of Understanding adopted on 29 August 1980 by the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea’.19 Therefore, where a maritime State seeks to have its sovereign territory extend past the otherwise applicable 200 nautical mile limit, it is required by UNCLOS to submit its arguments in this respect for determination by the CLCS.20 Claims before the CLCS may only be submitted by States which have ratified UNCLOS, and must be made within 10 years of ratification.21 In order for such a claim to be of merit, it must be

based on the argument that the claimed territory lies above seafloor which is a geological extension of the States continental shelf rather than a separate feature of the subsurface topography.22 While the CLCS may make final recommendations regarding territorial disputes, it has no actual authority or jurisdiction to finally decide such disputes.23 These may only be resolved by bilateral or multilateral agreements between the competing states or in accordance with customary international law.24 This is recognized by Article 83 of UNCLOS which imposes a positive duty on signatories to enter into ‘equitable’ delimitation agreements ‘on the basis of international law’ and to ‘make every effort to enter provisional arrangements of a practical nature’ pending such agreements so as not to ‘jeopardize or hamper the reaching of the final agreement’.25 That said, the intent of UNCLOS is clearly that the work of the CLCS—as an impartial, objective arbiter

proceeding along neutral scientific principles—will encourage competing States to reach final agreements on terms close to, if not specifically based on, its recommendations.26 The work of the CLCS has received no greater attention than in respect of the competing national claims made to the Arctic Ocean and the seabed below it .27 This is for good cause. On the one hand, each of the USA, Canada, the Russian Federation, Denmark and Norway claim overlapping portions of the Arctic Ocean. On the other hand, the stakes are potentially very high, while the applicable law and science do not always square neatly.28 As a result , the clash over the Arctic has been described as ‘a perfect storm seeded with political opportunism, national pride, military muscle flexing, high energy prices and the arcane exigencies of international law’.29 The USA has yet to ratify UNCLOS and will therefore forego submitting any arguments to the CLCS. Norway has filed its

submissions, while Canada and Denmark have until 2013 and 2014 to do so, respectively. While Russia initially filed its submissions in 2001, it is currently preparing a revised submission following a finding by the CLCS that its initial arguments provided insufficient evidence to establish the claims asserted by Russia. What US non-participation by the USA in the UNCLOS process means for the outcome of the CLCS’s deliberations, as well as for inclination of all five States to abide by its recommendations, remains to be seen.30 Nonetheless, the CLCS’s task is an important one. Interest in exploring and developing the oil and gas reserves of the Arctic has accelerated substantially over the last decade, and is only likely to continue for a number of reasons. First, it is estimated that as much as 25 per cent of the world’s remaining oil and gas reserves lie under the Arctic Ocean.31 Secondly, thinning icecaps and opening waterways amid arctic islands have made exploration of the Arctic’s oil and gas reserves more feasible, both economically and logistically.32 Thirdly, declining reserves in certain parts of the world have necessitated a reinvigorated campaign to discover new sources of hydrocarbons in previously undeveloped or underdeveloped regions.33 Finally, rising oil prices as well as technological advances have made such a reinvigorated campaign more economically and practically viable.34 In the meantime, the political (as well as the economic and the environmental) sensitivity of drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic will almost certainly ensure that no operations will be conducted in the disputed territory without the completion or settlement of a firm consensus on territorial delimitation.35 For example, similar geopolitical uncertainty has long paralyzed operations in a promising 6250 square nautical mile slice of the Beaufort Sea extending north from the maritime intersection of Alaska and the Yukon Territory claimed by both the USA and Canada.36 It is also possible that smaller sub-agreements dealing with less contentious related matters such as environmental protection and joint marine contingency plans may precede a comprehensive agreement delimiting territorial sovereignty.37 Furthermore, contrary to common perception,38 cooperation characterizes the ‘race for the Arctic’ much more so than does competition and conflict.39 The USA and Canada, for example, have been conducting joint sub-sea mapping expeditions in the Arctic Ocean since 2008.40 In the same year all five littoral Arctic States met in IIulissat, Greenland, to affirm their commitment to using UNCLOS and the CLCS to resolve their competing continental shelf extension claims.41 This led to the ‘Ilulissat Declaration’ by which the five States noted that UNCLOS was the ‘extensive international legal framework’ applicable to the Arctic Ocean, and that UNCLOS provides a ‘solid foundation for responsible management … through national implementation and application of relevant provisions’.42 Moreover, scientists from all five countries, and in particular the USA, Canada and Denmark, have been actively collaborating with each other in sharing research and information in respect to the Arctic seafloor, including those areas composing the Beaufort Sea and the seabed north of Greenland.43 Other material provisions of UNCLOS UNCLOS also provides for the protection of the marine environment, primarily through the provisions of Part XII, which provides that States have the right to exploit their natural resources in accordance with their duty to protect and preserve the marine environment.44 To this end, States are required to take measures to control pollution of the marine environment, whether from land-based sources, vessels or installations or devices used in the exploration for and exploitation of the natural resources of the seabed and subsoil.45 These measures are required to include the adoption of laws and regulations and, with respect to pollution from vessels, and acting through the appropriate international organization or general diplomatic conference, the establishment of international rules and standards.46 Article 17 gives all States the right of ‘innocent passage’ through the territorial waters of another State, which means passage that is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the latter State.47 Finally, UNCLOS provides for dispute resolution mechanisms, allowing States to choose, as a means of settling disputes, between the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or another arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII or VIII to UNCLOS.48 With regard to disputes concerning activities in the Area, the jurisdiction of the Seabed Disputes Chamber of ITLOS includes disputes regarding the interpretation of Part XI, which relates to the Area.49 3. Resources development under joint development agreements and similar international instruments Joint development

agreements Maritime territorial disputes do not prohibit the development of energy resources located in the disputed territory as a matter of course. Rather, where two or more States contest the same maritime territory home to offshore oil and gas resources they may agree to enter into a joint development agreement ( JDA) to provide for the exploration and exploitation of such reserves pending final resolution of the territorial dispute. Furthermore, joint development has become an increasingly popular method of diffusing maritime territorial disputes while all evidence suggests that this trend is likely to continue.50

While there persists some academic controversy regarding the exact legal nature and implications of such arrangements,51 JDAs can be broadly defined as ‘a procedure under which boundary disputes are set aside, without prejudice to the validity of the conflicting claims, and the interested States agree, instead, to jointly explore and exploit and to share any hydrocarbons found in the area subject to overlapping claims’.52 In this regard, joint development should be distinguished from cross-border unitization for, whereas the latter typically applies in respect of specific reservoirs and deposits straddling an international boundary, the former applies in respect of one or more reservoirs or deposits within a larger geographic area the sovereign control of

which is disputed.53 Joint development should also be distinguished from delimitation, wherein States with a contested maritime border reach definitive agreement on the precise coordinates of the dividing line between their waters.54 States are not required by international law to enter into a JDA where a dispute exists in respect of maritime territory in which hydrocarbons deposits are presumed or known to exist.55 However, a significant number of international law publicists agree that there may exist ‘a general obligation to consult and negotiate about a provisional agreement pending final delimitation’.56 Several decisions rendered by the ICJ and other international tribunals have also advocated the negotiation of JDAs in these circumstances.57 In the North Sea Continental Shelf58 cases, for instance, the ICJ cited with approval the success of the UK and Norway of entering into JDAs to ensure the ‘most efficient exploitation or the apportionment of the products extracted’ from hydrocarbon deposits lying on either side of a disputed maritime boundary.59 The court continued to state that it found joint development ‘particularly appropriate’ when it came to ‘preserving the unity of a deposit’.60 More recently, the Arbitral Tribunal in the Eritrea-Yemen Arbitration case61 concluded that international State practice dictates that ‘Eritrea and Yemen should give every consideration to

the shared or joint or unitised exploitation of any … [straddling] resources’ (emphasis added).62 JDAs and applicable law and regulation There are a number of reasons why a JDA is an attractive solution to a maritime border dispute .63 JDAs allow resources contained in the disputed territory to be exploited without prejudice to the sovereign rights of the disputing State parties to the disputed territories. They are capable of being negotiated in potentially far less time than would be required to finally settle the border dispute . As recognized by the ICJ, JDAs have also proved successful in a number of different past

instances. That said, JDAs are not a panacea and do not come in a one size fits all model but rather vary in scope and complexity .64 Aside from geographic scope, they may address a variety of different issues, including (1) the applicable management structure; (2) allocation of proceeds between the State parties and their licensees; (3) the preservation of the rights of the State parties, (4) duration and termination; (5) the nature of concession rights and the types of licences, permits or contracts involved; (6) governing law; and (7) dispute resolution.65 For example, the management provisions of a JDA may provide for the management of the joint development area by a single State, by both States or by the delegation of power by the States to a third-party administrative body with varying degrees of authority over the exploration and exploitation of the area.66 Articles 6 and 9 of the Nigeria–São Tomé and Príncipe JDA of 2001, for example, established a ‘Joint Ministerial Council’ and a ‘Joint Authority’.67 The Joint Authority is responsible to (and overseen by) the Joint Council,68 and is responsible for both dividing the joint development zone into separate contract areas and for entering into production sharing contracts with oil and gas operators in respect of such contract areas.69 Article 10 provides that the Joint Authority is to be governed by a board consisting of four members, two of which will be appointed by Nigeria and two by São Tomé and Príncipe. Similarly, in 1979 Malaysia and Thailand entered into a Memorandum of Understanding regarding disputed maritime territory between them providing that there was to be created a Joint Authority consisting of an equal number of members from each country.70 The Joint Authority to be created in accordance with the terms set out in the 1979 Malaysia–Thailand Memorandum of Understanding ‘shall assume all rights and responsibilities on behalf of both Parties’ for the exploration and exploitation of non-living resources in the joint development area, as well as the development, control and administration of that area, and the formulation of policies in respect of the same.71 Both the Nigeria–São Tomé and Príncipe and the Malaysia–Thailand agreements confer significant powers to manage resources on the joint authorities that they establish, as does the Sudan–Saudi Arabia JDA on the Commission created by that agreement.72 Under the Sudan–Saudi Arabia JDA, the Commission is a body corporate that is responsible for, among other things, considering and deciding applications for licences and concessions, expediting the exploitation and exploration of natural resources, and making such regulations as may be necessary to discharge its functions.73 This is to be contrasted with the JDA between Japan and South Korea—which also established a Commission—but one which is not a separate legal entity and that has much more limited powers, leaving more discretion in the hands of the parties to make decisions.74 The Commission created by the Japan–South Korea JDA is generally responsible for making recommendations to the parties regarding measures to be taken to improve the operation of the agreement, resolving disputes and solving problems that were unexpected at the time of entry into force of the agreement.75 On the other hand, the applicable law established by the JDA may include an applicable petroleum licensing regime, regulatory matters in respect of health, safety and the environment, and surveillance, security and traffic.76 Under Article 10 of the Timor Sea Treaty,77 for example, limited liability entities are liable for damages arising from pollution of the marine environment in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction under which the claim is brought (which could be either the law of Australia or East Timor) and in accordance with the contract, licence or other form of authority that was issued under the Timor Sea Treaty. The Timor Sea Treaty also requires that the joint authority it creates (1) issues regulations to protect the environment and (2) establishes contingency plans for combating pollution resulting from exploration and production activities in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ).78 With regard to the development of the Sunrise and Troubadour petroleum deposits, approximately 20 per cent of which has been agreed by Australia and East Timor to fall within the JDZ, it has been agreed that certain Australian environmental legislation shall apply.79 Similarly, Article XX of the Japan–South Korea JDA provides that the parties shall agree on measures to prevent and remove pollution of the sea resulting from exploration or exploitation activities in the JDZ.80 In addition, Article XIX of the JDA provides that, as a general rule, the laws and regulations of a party will apply in the subzones of the joint development area in which the party has authorized concessionaires.81 The Nigeria–São Tome and Príncipe JDA, on the other hand, provides generally that that the Authority shall prepare for approval by the ‘Council’ regulatory and tax regime, which shall be the law applicable to the exploration for and exploitation of petroleum in the zone.82 Certain provisions of JDAs may also function to provide clarity where the exact opposite would otherwise be the case. Jurisdiction and conflict of laws are prime examples. In the aftermath of the Ocean Ranger tragedy of 15 February 1982 at the Hibernia oilfield in the waters of Newfoundland, Canada, central difficulties repeatedly encountered in the ensuing lawsuits included questions related to appropriate, jurisdiction and standing.83 This resulted from the fact that, although offshore Newfoundland, (1) the Ocean Ranger was located in

the then high seas;84 (2) the Ocean Ranger was flagged in the United States; (3) it had been built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (a Japanese registered entity); (4) it was owned by Ocean Drilling and Exploration International Corporation (a US registered entity); and (5) it had been hired to Petro-Canada (a Canadian registered entity).85 Comprehensively drafted JDAs can clarify some of these issues, including by specifying which signatories States’ laws will apply in specific circumstances or to specific actions, or by granting priority to the flag of the transport vessel, drill vessel, seismic vessel, rig or aircraft involved in the matter. There are different ways by which States can grant the right to exploit resources, including by way of production sharing contracts or by tax and concession systems. At the time of the Malaysia–Thailand Memorandum of Understanding of 1979, Malaysia employed the former while Thailand employed the latter, a situation that led to a delay in reaching a final agreement.86 When an agreement was reached in 1990, it was decided that a production sharing contract system would be used in respect of the joint development area.87 Article 8 of the Malaysia–Thailand JDA stipulates, in some detail, certain terms that such a contract shall include, such as a royalty of 10 per cent of the gross production of petroleum and a dispute resolution mechanism.88 Other agreements may contemplate, but not require, such contracts. The Nigeria–São Tomé and Príncipe JDA states that any petroleum activities in the JDZ must be pursuant to a petroleum development contract,89 with the term ‘development contract’ being defined broadly to encompass not only production sharing contracts but also leases, licences and concessions.90 Another example is the Japan–South Korea JDA, which employs a concession system, each of the parties only being permitted to impose taxes on their own concessionaires with respect to

exploration and exploitation activities in the joint development zone.91 JDAs can also clarify the status of licences granted in respect of disputed maritime territory prior to the resolution of the matter. In some circumstances, a JDA may provide for the continuation or termination of rights under pre-existing licences. Under Article XIII of the Sudan–Saudi Arabia JDA, for instance, it was agreed that the Joint Commission would decide on the matter of certain licences previously granted by Sudan to Sudanese Minerals Limited and the West German Company of Preussag AG, so as to preserve the rights of Sudan in the context of the regime established by the JDA.92 Annex F under Article 5(A) of the Timor Sea Treaty, on the other hand, provides that contracts are to be offered to those corporations holding certain pre-existing contracts on the same terms as those pre-existing contracts, modified to take into account the administrative system created by that agreement.93 JDAs and unitization In addition to establishing the applicable law and regulatory regimes, the central function of many JDAs is to enact the means by which contested resources will be shared or unitized by the competing States. This can occur in a number of different contexts, not all of which fall strictly within the category of ‘joint development’. The 1976 Frigg Agreement,94 executed by the UK and Norway in respect of the Frigg Gas Field in the North Sea, constitutes an international unitization treaty rather than a JDA and is noteworthy in that it pertains to a specific, pre-identified reservoir or field rather than a wider area or region. This can be contrasted with the Nigeria–São Tomé and Príncipe agreement which is very much a JDA and which pertains to all oil and gas fields falling within a larger joint development area, whether such fields have been previously identified or not.95 Much like the Frigg Agreement, on the other hand, is the Norway–Russia Maritime Delimitation Treaty of 2010 which both demarcates by agreement the arctic maritime boundary between the two countries as well as establishes the basic procedure according to which resources found to straddle such demarcation line will be jointly developed by the countries and their licensees.96 Such unitization provisions vary in detail and specificity. Article 5 of the Norway–Russia Maritime Delimitation Treaty provides for the mandatory unitization of reservoirs which straddle the delimitation line and which are capable of being exploited from either side. The wording of this Article mirrors that found in many earlier international unitization agreements and provides that: … 2. If the existence of a hydrocarbon deposit on the continental shelf of one of the Parties is established and the other Party is of the opinion that the said deposit extends to its continental shelf, the latter Party may notify the former Party and shall submit the data on which it bases its opinion. If such an opinion is submitted, the Parties shall initiate discussions on the extent of the hydrocarbon deposit and the possibility for exploitation of the deposit as a unit. In the course of these discussions, the Party initiating them shall support its opinion with evidence from geophysical data and/or geological data, including any existing drilling data and both Parties shall make their best efforts to ensure that all relevant information is made available for the purposes of these discussions. … Article 5 further provides that where such a reservoir is discovered, the parties are required to negotiate a unitization agreement in respect of the reservoir in accordance with Annex II to the treaty. Similar to the Frigg Agreement, Annex II then imposes several mandatory provisions for inclusion in each unitization agreement, including terms obligating the parties to consult each other with respect to applicable health, safety and environmental measures that are to be required by their respective national laws and regulations and to ensure that production installations and facilities are routinely inspected for the compliance with same.97 That said, the remainder of the unitization provisions of the Norway–Russia Maritime Delimitation Treaty remain relatively thin and are largely dependent on future agreement by the parties rather than predetermined terms and conditions. The Nigeria–São Tomé JDA, in contrast, provides for unitization in three different situations. This can of course be traced to the fact that, unlike the Norway–Russia Maritime Delimitation Treaty, the Nigeria–São Tomé agreement provides for joint development of resources within a large area the sovereignty of which remains contested by multiple parties, including non-signatory States. The first provision for unitization applies where a reservoir straddles the joint development zone and the exclusive maritime area of either Nigeria or São Tomé. Where this is the case, the parties must endeavour to reach an agreement ‘upon a fair and reasonable basis’ for the optimal commercial unitized exploitation of the reservoir.98 The second is where a reservoir straddles two different contract areas within the joint development zone. Where this is the case the Council has authority to decide the appropriate resolution of the matter.99 The third is where a reservoir straddles the joint development zone and the exclusive maritime area of a third State. Where this is the case the Authority, subject to approval by the Council, is to consider negotiations with the third State with a view to reaching a definitive agreement regarding the exploitation of the reservoir.100 The Timor Gap Treaty between Australia and Indonesia is another agreement that contemplates the unitization of petroleum deposits. This treaty created a ‘Zone of Cooperation’ in connection with the disputed area, which was itself divided into three subzones known as Areas A, B and C.101 Of these areas, only the petroleum exploration and exploitation activities in Area A were jointly controlled by Indonesia and Australia, whereas Areas B and C were controlled separately by Australia and Indonesia, respectively, with the party having sole control over the area being obligated to share a proportion of the resource tax revenues it collected in respect of that area with the other party.102 A ‘Joint Authority’ was established by the treaty which was responsible for the management of petroleum exploration and exploitation activities within Area A.103 In the case of an accumulation of petroleum that extended across a boundary line of Area A, the parties resolved to ‘seek to reach agreement on the manner in which the accumulation shall be most effectively exploited and on the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from such exploitation’.104 JDAs and licensees Although JDAs are executed between disputing sovereign States, they may also contain provisions directly applicable to licensees. These often manifest in provisions of the JDA which require the State signatories to impose requirements on licensees through the terms of the licences issued in respect of the subject maritime territory, as well as through various other regulatory matters dealt with in the JDA. The Frigg Agreement, for example, expressly provided for the participation of oil and gas companies in the development of the Frigg Field in a number of noteworthy respects. As described by Woodcliffe at the Treaty’s execution, the ‘licensees’ role in furthering the declared objective of exploiting the [Frigg Field] as a single unit is a crucial one, the execution of which is subject to a wide measure of government direction and control’.105 Article 2 of the Frigg Agreement directly involved licensees within the delimitation and apportionment process by requiring that licensees submit to each government proposals for determining and apportioning the limits and estimated total reserves of the Frigg Field.106 Similarly, Article 4 required that licensees submit for the approval of the two Governments a scheme to secure the conservation of the Frigg Field Reservoir for productive operations.107 The Frigg Agreement further provided that, while licensees could supplement their joint development agreements through ancillary agreements addressing certain accounting and operational matters, all such ancillary agreements (1) required notification to the two governments, (2) remained subject to such amendments or further agreements as the two governments might agree to be necessary to ‘properly … secure the exploitation of Frigg Gas’ and (3) could only be amended with the approval of the two governments.108 Other unitization provisions of JDAs and similar agreements speaking to licensees will impose more general terms not unlike those typically found in production sharing contracts and similar licenses or concessions. These may require, among other things, that the unit operator nominated by the licensees is subject to approval by each of the governments, that the licensees cannot transfer any interest in the subject licenses without the prior approval of both governments, and that all operating agreements entered into by the licensees in respect of the subject resources must be approved by both governments and must be made expressly subject to the applicable JDA or unitization agreement. Still other unitization provisions of JDAs and similar agreements speaking to licensees may impose more specific or idiosyncratic terms. The Nigeria–São Tomé JDA, for example, provides that contractors will be entitled to dispose of production subject only to any non-discriminatory restrictions the Authority may impose on landing, identity of the purchaser and verification of the volumes concerned.109 This JDA also expressly grants contractors the right to acquire, construct and dispose of production infrastructure and facilities in the territory of either State party as required for development of the joint area, subject of course to the applicable laws of the relevant State.110 Unlike some other JDAs, the Nigeria–São Tomé JDA also addresses the procedure pursuant to which licences in the joint development zone are issued, providing that all production sharing contracts will be granted pursuant to licensing rounds unless decided otherwise by the Council.111 Under the Malaysia–Thailand JDA, on the other hand, several mandatory conditions are imposed on licensees such as a maximum term for contracts, being the lesser of 35 years and the term of the JDA itself.112 That JDA also states that the minimum amount that a contractor may expend on petroleum operations may be agreed to between the Joint Authority and the contractor.113 In addition, the Malaysia–Thailand JDA stipulates that the Joint Authority has the option to include several other terms in contracts, including that the term of a petroleum (but not gas) contract for the purposes of exploration, development and production, shall not exceed 5 years, 5 years and 25 years, for each of those respective purposes.114 Finally, the JDA provides that the Joint Authority has the option to include a term in a contract that it shall have title to all original data resulting from petroleum operations.115 4. Resource development amid unresolved maritime territorial disputes Regardless of the increasing popularity of JDAs as a means of diffusing maritime territorial disputes, many such disputes continue unresolved.116 Moreover, the continuation of such disputes does not always deter one or more of the competing States from issuing exploration and development licences in respect of the contested area and oil and gas firms from proceeding with operations in respect of same. For example, despite the ongoing dispute regarding sovereignty over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, Desire Petroleum plc, a British oil and gas company, in 2010 commissioned an offshore exploration rig to drill up to 10 exploratory wells in the northern waters of the archipelago.117 This followed successful exploration operations in the area by Rockhopper Exploration. According to the Falkland Islands Department of Mineral Resources, Rockhopper Exploration’s Sea Lion Well was declared an oil discovery after being spudded on 15 April 2010.118 Closer to Europe, research work by a Turkish vessel under military escort in disputed waters south of Cyprus to which Israel, Greece and Cyprus have also made competing claims recently raised tension in the eastern Mediterranean.119 A potentially significant gas discovery by ExxonMobil off the coast of Vietnam and pursuant to a Vietnamese exploration licence in waters also claimed by China had a similar effect in the South China Sea in October 2011.120 To the northeast, the growing standoff between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the South China Sea represents one of the more recent escalations of tension over dispute maritime territory.121 In many instances, one can only speculate as to why States choose to proceed with the development of contested resources unilaterally. It may be because they are unprepared to wait as long as they anticipate resolution to take, or because they see resolution as potentially never occurring. They may believe they have a clearly superior claim to the territory in which the particular licence is issued. They also may not be concerned with the ability of other contesting States to marshal any threatening military or other opposition. What is certain, however, is that the ICJ has made clear in the Tunisia–Libya case that

granting concessions in disputed maritime territory does not bolster a country’s claim to such territory under UNCLOS. In particular, the Court held that, while ‘the presence of oil-wells in an area to be delimited … may, depending on the facts, be an element to be taken into account in the process of weighing all relevant factors to achieve an equitable result’,122 this may only be the case where the relevant oil concession or licence is ‘based on express or tacit agreement’ between the competing States.123 What is also clear is that unresolved maritime territorial disputes present a unique set of circumstances and considerations for oil and gas firms considering operations in their midst . Not least of these is the risk of raising the ire of competing States as well as the possibility of attracting liability to such States . This section therefore examines the law pertaining to the rights and obligations of oil and gas operators

conducting exploration and development operations amid unresolved maritime territorial disputes. In this regard, while less than robust, such principles have seen some noteworthy development in recent times. This includes pronouncements on (1) the obligations of States not to jeopardize resolution of the dispute, (2) the nature of exploration and development activities permitted amid unresolved territorial disputes under international law and (3) the duty of operators not to interfere with sovereign efforts to resolve maritime territorial disputes. Guyana v Suriname: the obligation of states not to jeopardize resolution In February of 2004, amid a longstanding maritime dispute stretching back to colonial times, Guyana instituted arbitration proceedings against Suriname under UNCLOS alleging various breaches of international law by Suriname in the disputed waters between them.124 Guyana had in 1998 granted a concession in the contested area of the continental shelf to CGX Resources Inc, a Canadian exploration and development company.125 In 1999, CGX had commissioned seismic exploration of the entirety of its concession. This prompted Suriname in May 2000 to demand that Guyana cease all exploration activities in the disputed territory and that CGX in particular immediately cease all operations beyond certain coordinates, which at that time consisted of preparatory work by an oil rig and drill ship, the C.E. Thornton.126 When the Thornton failed to depart, Suriname sent two patrol boats to the area in June 2000.127 Through the boats, Suriname ordered the Thornton and its service vessels to vacate the area within 12 h, and the crew of the drill ship detached the oil rig from the sea floor and withdrew from the concession area, escorted by the patrol boats.128 The tribunal, registered under the Permanent Court of Arbitration for the purpose of the proceedings, held unanimously that Suriname’s expulsion of CGX and its contractors through its patrol boats constituted a threat of the use of force in violation of UNCLOS, the UN Charter and general international law in that it was more akin to a threat of military action than mere law enforcement activity.129 Importantly, the tribunal also held that both Guyana and Suriname had failed to meet their duties under Articles 74(3) and 83(3) of UNCLOS, being the obligation to make every effort to enter into provisional arrangements of a practical nature, pending final delimitation, and not to jeopardize or hamper efforts to reach such final agreement.130 Guyana had failed to meet this standard primarily in the run-up to the patrol boat incident, ie by not engaging Suriname in discussions regarding its drilling plans at a far earlier date.131 In particular, the tribunal held that Guyana should have (1) given Suriname official and detailed notice of its planned activities (apparently Suriname had only become alert to CGX’s operations by way of press release by the company); (2) sought the cooperation of Suriname in undertaking the proposed drilling programme; (3) offered to share the statistical and technical results of the exploration; (4) provided to Suriname the opportunity to observe the drilling programme; and (5) offered to share the financial benefits of the drilling programme with Suriname.132 Suriname, on the other hand, was found to have violated its obligations primarily through its immediate resort to a display of force rather than a resort to softer diplomatic efforts.133 In the eyes of the tribunal, Suriname should have attempted to engage Guyana ‘in a spirit of understanding and cooperation” rather than opting for a “harder stance’.134 Suriname could have done this by attempting to bring Guyana to the negotiating table, including by accepting a last minute offer of negotiation from Guyana.135 Suriname could also have made such an acceptance conditional on the immediate cessation by CGX of all its operations rather than resorting immediately to ‘self-help’ in threatening the CGX rig as it did.136 Guyana v Suriname: permitted exploration and development operations amid unresolved territorial disputes Importantly, the Guyana v Suriname tribunal also held (1) that certain types of exploratory and development works by oil companies in disputed maritime territory are acceptable under international law, and (2) that competing territorial claims should not stifle economic development of natural resources by the interested States. The tribunal held that, in ‘the context of activities surrounding hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, two classes of activities in disputed waters are … permissible’.137 These are, on the one hand, ‘activities undertaken by the parties pursuant to provisional arrangements of a practical nature’, and on the other hand, ‘acts which, although unilateral, would not have the effect of jeopardizing or hampering the reaching of a final agreement on the delimitation of the maritime boundary’.138 Pronouncing further on the scope of the latter category, the tribunal held that ‘unilateral acts which do not constitute a physical change to the marine environment’ would generally qualify, while acts that do cause ‘physical change’ would not.139 This then led the tribunal to make a distinction between ‘activities of the kind that lead to a permanent physical change, such as exploitation of oil and gas reserves, and those that do not, such as seismic exploration’.140 In reaching its decision the tribunal considered the decision of the ICJ in the Aegean Sea Continental Shelf Case concerning Greece and Turkey. In 1974, Turkey had granted exploration permits to an area of the Aegean Sea over which Greece contested the country’s sovereignty.141 When Turkey proceeded to authorize scientific exploration expeditions to the licence areas (along with guardian warships), Greece applied to the ICJ for interim measures.142 In particular, Greece claimed that the granting of the licences and the operations of the exploration vessels constituted contraventions of its sovereign right to the exploration and exploitation of the area, and that the result was a breach of its right as a coastal State to the exclusivity of knowledge in respect of its continental shelf amounting to irreparable prejudice.143 The ICJ disagreed, holding that Turkey’s actions did not justify or necessitate an interim measure of protection.144 In interpreting the ICJ’s decision, the Guyana–Suriname tribunal held that it was necessary to distinguish between ‘activities of a transitory character and activities that risk irreparable prejudice to the position of the other party’.145 In this regard, it highlighted that the ICJ’s ruling established (1) that seismic exploration does not involve any risk of physical damage to the seabed or subsoil, (2) that such activities are of a transitory character and do not involve the establishment of fixed installations and (3) that no operations involving the actual appropriation or other use of natural resources were embarked upon.146 The tribunal therefore found that, while it ‘should not be permissible for a party to a dispute to undertake any unilateral activity that might affect the other party’s rights in a permanent manner’, neither should ‘international courts or tribunals … stifle the parties’ ability to pursue economic development in a disputed area during a boundary dispute, as the resolution of such disputes will typically be a time-consuming process’.147 In other words, the tribunal held that, while maritime territorial disputes suspend the entitlement of the disputing States to exploit the resources within the disputed area in a permanent manner (that is, through drilling and extraction), this principle should not be taken so far as to prevent the States from undertaking less invasive or physically disturbing development activities (namely, seismic exploration). RSM Production v Grenada: non-interference by operators Not entirely unrelated principles inform the decision of the tribunal in RSM Production Corporation v Grenada.148 Here it was essentially held that oil companies should not interfere in boundary disputes, particularly where they are unlikely to be able to contribute to resolution in any meaningful fashion, since they have no direct rights under international law and no standing before international tribunals such as the ICJ. RSM executed a somewhat unusual contractual arrangement with Grenada in July 1996 whereby it was entitled to apply for an ‘exploration licence’ from Grenada for offshore oil and gas exploration and, in the event of commercial discovery, to apply for one or more ‘development licences’, all such licences to be granted by Grenada subject to the country’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Deposits Act 1989 and the terms of the parties’ agreement.149 Such terms included an arbitration agreement referring disputes to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) as well as a force majeure provision.150 The latter provision was included at least in part because the subject contract area included maritime territory contested by Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. When RSM applied to Grenada in April 2004 for an exploration licence under the agreement and the 1989 Act, Grenada refused it before terminating the agreement in July 2005.151 RSM instituted arbitral proceedings seeking an order providing, among other things, (1) that the agreement remained in effect, (2) that Grenada was obligated to ensure that RSM was awarded an exploration licence pertaining to the contract area and (3) that Grenada was prohibited from negotiating with (or granting to) third parties any exploration or development rights in respect of the contract area.152 Grenada requested as respondent, among other things, that the tribunal order RSM ‘to refrain from: (a) interfering in any way with Grenada’s foreign policy and relations with other States; (b) representing to any person or entity that it has authority to act as an agent or representative of … Grenada; and (c) asserting to any person or entity that it has any kind of licence or other rights in respect of Grenada’s offshore territory or EEZ’.153 If Grenada’s appeals for relief strike the reader as unusual, that is because they indeed are, and because the facts of RSM v Grenada are largely composed of unusually aggressive attempts by RSM and its chief principal, a Mr Jack Grynberg, to interject themselves into the sovereign attempts by Grenada to negotiate maritime delimitation with Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. The laundry list of pointed interruptions by RSM and Grynberg makes for interesting reading. When commissioning delimitation maps to be used by Grenada in negotiations with Trinidad and Tobago, Grynberg instructed the engineers to be purposefully favourable to Trinidad and Tobago as he would ‘like a speedy resolution of the boundary demarcation’.154 When negotiations with Trinidad and Tobago did not bring immediate results, Grynberg wrote to Grenada threatening to commence ICSID arbitration against Trinidad and Tobago on behalf of both RSM and Grenada, and stating that, should Grenada not agree, RSM would add Grenada as a defendant alongside Trinidad and Tobago.155 Not long thereafter, RSM, without the authorization of Grenada, prepared and submitted to ITLOS a boundary resolution complaint against Trinidad and Tobago on behalf of Grenada.156 RSM then later, again falsely claiming to be acting as an authorized representative of Grenada, wrote to the Prime Minster of Trinidad and Tobago claiming that recent seismic activity undertaken by Trinidad and Tobago in the disputed area constituted a trespass onto Grenada’s maritime area.157 RSM’s univited involvement extended to Venezuela. On several occasions, Grynberg sought to negotiate with Venezuela on behalf of Grenada unilaterally and without notice to Grenada, including attempted negotiations with Petroleos de Venezuela S.A.(PDVSA), the Venezuelan State-owned oil company.158 He then commenced a lawsuit in the US Federal Court in an attempt to pressure PDVSA and Venezuela into a maritime boundary settlement with Grenada.159 Furthermore, following the dismissal of the claim, Grynberg nonetheless wrote to Grenada suggesting that the litigation had produced a concession on the part of PDVSA in favour of Grenada’s ownership of the maritime territory, as if PDVSA was legally capable of making such a concession at the time.160 As one would expect, the tribunal’s review of RSM’s and Grynberg’s campaign was not favourable. The tribunal held RSM’s actions in respect of Trinidad and Tobago to have caused ‘significant embarrassment to Grenada’, and that, overall, the company’s ‘secretive, unilateral, unauthorised, crude “horse-trading” approach, backed up with wild threats and vexatious litigation if unsuccessful, contradicted the essential principles of maritime boundary negotiations between States’.161 In respect of his engagement with Venezuela, the tribunal held that Grynberg’s actions ‘substantially hindered Grenada’s negotiations with [its neighbour]’ and that his ‘unilateral attempts to negotiate with Venezuela, despite several communications to the contrary by Grenada, together with his United States lawsuit against PDVSA, did not assist in the resolution of maritime boundaries between the two States’, but rather ‘provoked outright hostility’.162 The tribunal further found that ‘there is no evidence to support Mr. Grynberg’s interpretation of PDVSA having conceded Grenadian ownership of any maritime territory, either with respect to itself or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela … Nor could it have done so as a matter of international law without the express authorisation of the Government of Venezuela’.163 To the extent possible, the tribunal condemned the behaviour of RSM and Grynberg, stating that they ‘showed no appreciation of the many competing and overlapping policy objectives that a government simply must take into account in dealing with matters as complex and sensitive as foreign relations, interstate litigation and boundary delimitation’.164 This article has attempted to canvass much of the law applicable to offshore oil and gas projects amid maritime border disputes. That said, the survey conducted herein does not purport to be exhaustive, and a number of important questions remain unaddressed. For example, while Guyana v Suriname instructs that non-permanent operations may be permissible amid an unresolved maritime territorial dispute, and while RSM Production v Grenada instructs that private oil and gas operators should not interfere in delimitation negotiation efforts between competing sovereigns, neither

precedent examines what liabilities a private oil and gas firm may attract where it proceeds not only to explore for but also to develop and produce hydrocarbon resources located in or closely adjacent to disputed maritime territory. Furthermore, the extent to which this might be the case depends in part on another unclear legal question, namely whether the ‘rule of capture’ applies under international law.165 Similarly, questions remain regarding the liability of one sovereign to another where the first sovereign proceeds to develop and produce hydrocarbon resources located in or closely adjacent to disputed maritime territory. Some argue that any infringement across an international boundary constitutes a violation of a state’s sovereign rights.166 Professor Cameron, on the other hand, suggests that unilateral exploitation in disputed territory may be conscionable where conducted appropriately. He advises as follows: In such circumstances it would be important for the initiating State to act ‘in

a reasonable and responsible manner’. This could build upon the principles and rules in the international legal regime but also incorporate some industry practices which have emerged from unit development within a State’s borders. The aim would be to allow the initiating State to commence petroleum operations but to do so in accordance with, inter alia, the principle of the unity of the deposit and good international petroleum industry practices .167 According to Cameron, this could include establishing an escrow account into which the exploiting State would deposit a portion of revenues generated, ensuring that the exploiting State communicates and consults with the non-exploiting State in good faith and with diligence regarding the progress of operations, ensuring that that the exploiting State maintains complete and accurate records in respect of all operations, and adjusting operations accordingly following the negotiation of a preliminary agreement, including releasing funds held in escrow.168 Of course, establishing the law applicable to offshore oil and gas projects amid maritime border disputes will likely only be the first half of the exercise. Once this is accomplished, the next objective will likely be to develop prudent and appropriate risk mitigation strategies for enterprises entertaining engaging in such operations. For example, oil and gas companies interested in pursuing exploration and development opportunities in an offshore area governed by a JDA should consider the provisions of this instrument closely in structuring the terms of their participation (as well as in conducting appropriate due diligence in advance

of their participation).169 Various common risk mitigation and risk allocation clauses should also be considered and tailored appropriately. Ideally, a stabilization clause would account for all or part of the applicable regulatory and/or fiscal regime, whether fixed in a JDA or

whether determined by a joint commission or other third body empowered by the JDA. Applicable force majeure clauses should also be scrutinized closely, bearing always in mind that that the tribunal in RSM Production v Grenada made clear that States are under no obligation to settle maritime territorial disputes.170 Finally, companies engaging in joint operations in or closely adjacent to disputed maritime territory should consider specifically integrating risks and potential liabilities related to the dispute into their operating agreement, including, inter alia, into management committee voting thresholds, exclusive operations provisions, indemnification obligations and dispute resolution provisions.

Only the plan solves certainty which is critical

SCHOFIELD 2009 – University of Wollongong (Schofield, C. H. (2009). Blurring the lines: maritime joint development and the cooperative management of ocean resources. Issues in Legal Scholarship, 8 (1), Article 3. http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1373&context=lawpapers)

It is clear from the foregoing review that joint development has proved a popular approach and that numerous examples exist in State practice. Fundamentally, when faced with a deadlock, States have seen the merit in cooperative arrangements that provide an alternative when negotiations become deadlocked, enabling the parties to sidestep seemingly intractable maritime disputes. Maritime joint development thus allows intractable and contentious disputes to be circumvented in such a way that the pragmatic development or management of the resources or environment in the area of overlapping claims can proceed without delay . In this context it has been argued that joint development agreements offer a means to shift the emphasis to “a fair division of the resources at stake, rather than on the determination of an artificial line.”115 A potentially crucial attraction of the joint development option, either in addition to or instead of a maritime boundary, is that it offers the benefit of removing some of the uncertainty inherent in the delimitation of a final and binding maritime boundary. The possible presence of valuable resources in the area to be delimited may act as an incentive for the parties to claim a particular offshore area, but this factor can also serve to make them cautious about dividing the area of overlapping claims for fear that the resources in question may eventually be discovered on the “wrong” side of the line. This scenario may be especially the case for potential seabed hydrocarbon resources where uncertainty over the precise location of reserves can serve as a major deterrent to the delimitation of a boundary line.

Entering into a joint development arrangement helps to defuse this concern as both parties are guaranteed at least a share of any resources found. Existing State practice can be regarded as diverse, and this underscores flexibility of the joint development option. Joint development has been applied to a variety of jurisdictional zones, to both living and non-living resources, and can also include reference to security issues. The parties to a joint development mechanism may also specify the duration of the arrangement and retain considerable flexibility both regarding the regime that will govern activities within the specified joint zone as well as regarding the precise geographic area that that the joint regime will apply to. Concerning the latter point, however, it has been observed that the uncritical acceptance of competing unilateral maritime claims as the limits of a joint development zone is potentially problematic, as this serves to encourage, reward and to some extent legitimise excessive claims,

“without prejudice” clauses notwithstanding.116 The cooperative maritime arrangements reviewed above are all consistent with international law , especially UNCLOS Articles 74(3) and 83(3), and include a number of common components. They all feature a formal agreement setting the terms of the arrangement, notably the specific geographical area to which it applies and definition of the resources to which the arrangement applies together with agreement on the laws and jurisdiction governing exploration, operations and revenue sharing. Another common component of maritime joint

development practice includes robust “without prejudice” clauses designed to safeguard existing claims. Such a sovereignty neutral approach allows joint activities to proceed without compromising jurisdictional claims. In most examples it is also clear that only the parties to the agreement have claims to the area designated as a joint development zone. Where this is not the case, for instance in respect of the joint development zones established between Japan and South Korea, parts of which are also claimed by China, developments in the joint zone may well be compromised. Alternatively, as in the joint development area between Malaysia and Thailand, part of which is also subject to claims on the part of Vietnam, such claims will necessitate further agreements. A further crucial component for

joint development, as for any arrangement reached through negotiations, is political will. In the case of joint development though, such political does needs to be sustained over time. Where seabed resource development is contemplated it is worth considering that oil companies often embark on resource development projects with timelines measured in decades, meaning that any joint development arrangement concluded between interested States is likely to continue, and needs to be sustained , far beyond the lifetime of the governments that enter into it . The difficulties experienced by the Thai and Malaysian governments in converting their agreement in principle on joint development into a fully functioning cooperative mechanism provides a good of example of the problems that can occur. Similarly, the Argentina-UK experience in the South Atlantic, where the underlying sovereignty dispute has not been addressed, resources have not been discovered, and political will has waned over time is an instructive case. It has therefore been persuasively argued that joint development should not be viewed as some kind of panacea or as a “last gasp” solution applicable simply because a deadlock in maritime delimitation negotiations has been reached, and that “[t]he conclusion of any joint development arrangement, in the absence of the appropriate level of consent between the parties, is merely redrafting the problem and possibly complicating it further.”117 It is also worth observing that the mere existence of

a joint development mechanism does not in itself guarantee cooperation and that, furthermore, it certainly does not guarantee that sought after resources will actually be discovered in the joint zone. Nonetheless, it is abundantly clear that maritime joint development zones represent a valuable and arguably increasingly popular practical means to overcome intractable maritime disputes and to blur the lines of competing maritime claims so that cooperative development and management of ocean resources can proceed.

we solve hard and fastIER 09 (2/11/09, “Offshore Energy Exploration: Myth vs. Fact” Institute for Energy Research) http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/02/11/offshore-energy-exploration-myth-vs-fact-2/

Further, while there may be areas along the Atlantic coast without the significant build-out of infrastructure needed to facilitate quick energy production, other currently unexplored areas do have that infrastructure in place, such as the eastern Gulf of Mexico. No serious

observer has ever suggested that it would take anywhere close to ten years to access those energy resources and deliver them to American

consumers. Furthermore, in places like California, where an infrastructure is already in place and the local community supports offshore exploration, those resources could be available in a significantly shorter period of time.

benefits of the plan would be immediate --- perception is keyHastings 11 Doc, Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, "Forget 10 Years--Drilling ANWR Would Pay Off Right Away", November 3, www.usnews.com/debate-club/is-it-time-to-drill-in-the-arctic-refuge/forget-10-years--drilling-anwr-would-pay-off-right-away

Critics argue that we shouldn't drill in ANWR because it will take 10 years for the oil produced to become available. This fuzzy logic has been used for the last 20 years by those who simultaneously argue that renewable energies like wind and solar need decades to mature, along with billions in government subsidies. This inconsistent comparison is illogical and fails to provide equity in America's need for an all-of-the-above energy policy. While oil from ANWR might take a couple of years to get online, the job creation and effect on the economy would be almost instantaneous, as infrastructure and development activity could start immediately, sending billions to the federal government and employing thousands of people.

***CASE/ADDONS***

defense of “joint development zone”

the plan leads to creation of joint development economic zones --- helps balance between contradictory mechanismsPetkunaite ’11 – master’s candidate at CUNY(Dovile, “Cooperation or Conflict in the Arctic? UNCLOS and the Barents and Beaufort Sea Disputes”, The City College of New York, June 2011, http://digital-archives.ccny.cuny.edu/gallery/thesis/2011SpSs13.pdf)It is common in maritime boundary disputes for both parties to advocate the use of completely different methods regarding division of the area. It complicates the dispute settlement process, as both parties are unwilling to accept each other’s proposals . Therefore, a need for

alternative delimitation criteria arises. This thesis claims that the United States and Canada would benefit the most by settling the dispute bilaterally. The case of the Gulf of the Maine proved that relying on the third party to resolve the dispute can result in an outcome that is not totally satisfactory for either party. Taking into consideration the uncertainty about the techniques that the ICJ or an arbitrator might use in dividing a resource rich area, it is highly unlikely that both parties would leave the final say on the Beaufort Sea boundary to an adjudication process. As a result, the United States and Canada should analyze the negotiations that led Russia and Norway to cooperate and finally sign an agreement. Parties have to realize that without making concessions, it is impossible to reap benefits . A flexible approach and concessions made by both countries are needed when the issue of the natural resources is at stake . One possible solution to end the dispute is to adopt a modified equidistance line, which will be based on a “median line” but adjusted so that an equitable result would be reached . 266 It would acknowledge both parties‟ claims: the equidistance line favored by the United States and the nature of Canada‟s coastline as a “special circumstance” preferred by Canada. Both countries will be neither clear beneficiaries nor significant losers . This type of delimitation was

used solving the Barents Sea dispute, where both parties were granted approximately equal areas. The “joint development” concept may also be an option . Claimant countries would jointly explore, exploit, and have shared jurisdiction over adjacent borders . 267 This solution would allow both countries to share benefits equally and explore the region more systematically. Later this may lead to the final delimitation boundary as the resources deposits are explored, and mined. This option is mostly considered in the disputes involving natural resources , because in such cases parties to the

dispute tend to be less flexible in defining the border line. 268 Canada and the United States have a similar culture and legal system; therefore, the option of joint exploration and exploitation might work for them . As was indicated before, Canada and the United States have already started a joint mission aiming at exploration. If both parties find this option acceptable, there would be several issues that will need to be resolved . 269 The parties will need to negotiate the boundary of the joint-development zone, define how the mining will be undertaken, and how it will be administered? Moreover, the issues of funding and profits or minerals division will need to be addressed. There might be some disagreements and tensions, but a step forward on cooperation would already have been taken.

A2 land production solves

Off-access production is keyBandow 12 (Doug, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, author of several books, 12/14/12, “Energy to Spare” Cato Institute) http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/energy-spare

To obtain this bright future government merely need reduce barriers to existing energy production. Mills posits an even more abundant energy future, however. He asked: “what would happen if policies were enacted to accelerate and encourage even greater expansion of North American hydrocarbon production and to expand access to the vast tracts of federal lands that sit atop staggeringly large resources? Why not push beyond self-sufficiency to energy influence, even dominance?” The benefits of doing so are obvious. Allowing an already important industry to greatly expand and turn into a significant export market would offer significant economic rewards . Moreover, higher energy production could moderate global energy prices and reduce the reliance of other nations on the Middle East and other unstable and/or undemocratic energy states. Concluded Mills: “Economic research noted earlier finds about $75 billion in broad economic benefits for every billion barrel of oil produced (or oil-equivalent in hydrocarbons). This would imply that the aggregate 100 billion barrels of additional hydrocarbons extracted and sold over the next two decades in the accelerate scenario would yield over $7 trillion of value to the North American economy, with $5 trillion of that accruing to the U.S.” There are no obvious technological or economic barriers to this future. Nor are any government subsidies required. Rather, the problem is political, especially access to federal land . “Vast tracts of hydrocarbon-rich resources a re either entirely or effectively off-limits to development ,” with a steady decline in new natural gas and oil leases on federal land since 2006, explained Mills. In “Liberating the Energy Economy” he cited problems of regulatory “complexity,” “creep,” and “capriciousness.” In response he offered a deregulatory agenda, emphasizing agency accountability, access to federal lands for exploration and development , and rationalizing legal challenges to development. Among his suggested policy changes were removing barriers to exports and creating “a single federal portal for approval of all major energy projects,” similar to that employed by Canada.

A2 us leadership in arctic not key

us leadership is key to maintain influence of the arcticBert 12 (Captain Melissa – USCG, 2011-2012 Military Fellow, U.S.Coast Guard, “A Strategy to Advance the Arctic Economy”, February, http://www.cfr.org/arctic/strategy-advance-arctic-economy/p27258)The U nited States needs to develop a comprehensive strategy for the Arctic . Melting sea ice is generating an emerging Arctic economy. Nations

bordering the Arctic are drilling for oil and gas, and mining, shipping, and cruising in the region. Russia, Canada, and Norway are growing their icebreaker fleets

and shore-based infrastructure to support these enterprises. For the U nited States, the economic potential from the energy and mineral resources is in the trillions of dollars —based upon estimates that the Alaskan Arctic is the home to 30 billion barrels of oil, more than 220 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, rare earth minerals, and massive renewable wind, tidal, and geothermal energy. However, the U.S. government is unprepared to harness the potential that the Arctic offers. The United States lacks the capacity to deal with potential regional conflicts and seaborne disasters, and it has been on the sidelines when it comes to developing new governance mechanisms for the Arctic. To advance U.S. economic and security interests and avert potential environmental and human disasters, the United States should ratify the UN Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC), take the lead in developing mandatory international standards for operating in Arctic waters, and acquire icebreakers, aircraft, and infrastructure for Arctic operations. Regional Flashpoints Threaten Security Like the United States, the Arctic nations of Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark have geographical claims to the Arctic. Unlike the United States, however, they have each sought to exploit economic and strategic opportunities in the region by developing businesses, infrastructure, and cities in the Arctic. They have also renewed military exercises of years past, and as each nation learns of the others' activities, suspicion and competition increase. When the Russians sailed a submarine in 2007 to plant a titanium flag on the "north pole," they were seen as provocateurs, not explorers. The continental shelf is a particular point of contention. Russia claims that deep underwater ridges on the sea floor, over two hundred miles from the Russian continent, are part of Russia and are legally Russia's to exploit. Denmark and Canada also claim those ridges. Whichever state prevails in that debate will have exclusive extraction rights to the resources, which, based on current continental shelf hydrocarbon lease sales, could be worth billions of dollars. Debates also continue regarding freedom of navigation and sovereignty over waters in the region. Russia claims sovereignty over the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which winds over the top of Russia and Alaska and will be a commercially viable route through the region within the next decade. The United States contends the NSR is an international waterway, free to any nation to transit. The United States also has laid claim to portions of the Beaufort Sea that Canada says are Canadian, and the United States rejects Canada's claim that its Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific is its internal waters, as opposed to an international strait. Canada and Denmark also have a boundary dispute in Baffin Bay. Norway and Russia disagree about fishing rights in waters around the Spitsbergen/Svalbard Archipelago. U.S. Capacity in the Arctic Is Lacking Traffic and commercial activity are increasing in the region. The NSR was not navigable for years because of heavy ice, but it now consists of water with floating ice during the summer months. As the icebergs decrease in the coming years, it will become a commercially profitable route, because it reduces the maritime journey between East Asia and Western Europe from about thirteen thousand miles through the Suez Canal to eight thousand miles, cutting transit time by ten to fifteen days. Russian and German oil tankers are already beginning to ply those waters in the

summer months. Approximately 150,000 tons of oil, 400,000 tons of gas condensate, and 600,000 tons of iron ore were shipped via the NSR in 2011. Oil, gas, and mineral drilling, as well as

fisheries and tourism, are becoming more common in the high latitudes and are inherently dangerous, because icebergs and storms can shear apart even large tankers, offshore drilling units, fishing vessels, and cruise ships. As a result, human and environmental disasters are extremely likely. Despite the dangerous conditions, the Arctic has no mandatory requirements for those operating in or passing through the region. There are no designated shipping lanes, requirements for ice-strengthened hulls to withstand the extreme environment, ice navigation training for ships' masters, or even production and carriage of updated navigation and ice charts. Keeping the Arctic safe with the increased activity and lack of regulations presents a daunting task. The U.S. government is further hindered by the lack of ships, aircraft, and infrastructure to enforce sovereignty and criminal laws, and to protect people and the marine environment from catastrophic incidents. In the lower forty-eight states, response time to an oil spill or capsized vessel is measured in hours. In Alaska, it could take days or weeks to get the right people and resources on scene. The nearest major port is in the Aleutian Islands, thirteen hundred miles from Point Barrow, and response aircraft are more than one

thousand miles south in Kodiak, blocked by a mountain range and hazardous flying conditions. The Arctic shores lack infrastructure to launch any type of disaster response, or to support the growing commercial development in the region. U.S. Leadership in Arctic Governance Is Lacking

Governance in the Arctic requires leadership. The U nited States is uniquely positioned to provide such leadership , but it is hampered by its reliance on the eight-nation Arctic Council. However, more than 160 countries view the LSOC as the critical instrument defining conduct at sea and maritime obligations. The convention also addresses resource division, maritime traffic, and pollution regulation, and is relied upon for dispute resolution. The LOSC is particularly important in the Arctic, because it stipulates that the region beyond each country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) be divided between bordering nations that can prove their underwater continental shelves extend directly from

their land borders. Nations will have exclusive economic rights to the oil, gas, and mineral resources extracted from those O uter C ontinental S helves , making the convention's determinations substantial. According to geologists, the U.S. portion is projected to be the world's largest underwater extension of land—over 3.3 million square miles—bigger than the lower forty-eight states combined. In addition to global credibility and protection of Arctic shelf claims , the convention is important because it sets international pollution standards and requires signatories to protect the marine environment. Critics argue that the LOSC cedes American sovereignty to the United Nations. But the failure to ratify it has the opposite effect: it leaves the United States less able to protect its interests in the Arctic and elsewhere. The diminished influence is particularly evident at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the international body that "operationalizes"

the LOSC through its international port and shipping rules. By remaining a nonparty, the U nited States lacks the credibility to promote U.S. interests in the Arctic, such as by transforming U.S. recommendations into binding international laws. A Comprehensive U.S. Strategy for the Arctic The United States needs a

comprehensive strategy for the Arctic. The current National/Homeland Security Presidential Directive (NSPD-66 / HSPD-25) is only a broad policy statement. An effective Arctic strategy would address both governance and capacity questions. To generate effective governance in the Arctic the United States should ratify LOSC and take the lead in advocating the adoption of Arctic shipping requirements. The IMO recently proposed a voluntary Polar Code, and the United States should work to make it mandatory. The code sets structural classifications and standards for ships operating in the Arctic as well as specific navigation and emergency training for those operating in or around ice-covered waters. The United States should also support Automated Identification System (AIS) carriage for all ships transiting the Arctic. Because the Arctic is a vast region with no ability for those on land to see the ships offshore, electronic identification and tracking is the only way to know what ships are operating in or transiting the region. An AIS transmitter (costing as little as $800) sends a signal that provides vessel identity and location at all times to those in command centers around the world and is currently mandated for ships over sixteen hundred gross tons. The United States and other Arctic nations track AIS ships and are able to respond to emergencies based on its signals. For this reason, mandating AIS for all vessels in the Arctic is needed. The U.S. government also needs to work with Russia to impose a traffic separation scheme in the Bering Strait, where chances for a collision are high. Finally, the United States should push for

compulsory tandem sailing for all passenger vessels operating in the Arctic. Tandem sailing for cruise ships and smaller excursion boats will avert another disaster like RMS Titanic. To enhance the Arctic's economic potential, the United States should also develop its capacity to enable commercial entities to operate safely in the region . The U.S. government should invest in icebreakers , aircraft, and shore-based infrastructure. A ten-year plan should include the building of at least two heavy icebreakers, at a cost of approximately $1 billion apiece, and an air station in Point Barrow, Alaska, with at least three helicopters. Such an air station would cost less than $20 million, with operating, maintenance, and personnel costs comparable to other northern military facilities.

Finally, developing a deepwater port with response presence and infrastructure is critical . A base at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian

Islands, where ships and fishing vessels resupply and refuel, would only cost a few million dollars per year to operate. Washington could finance the cost of its

capacity-building efforts by using offshore lease proceeds and federal taxes on the oil and gas extracted from the Arctic region. In

2008, the U nited States collected $2.6 billion from offshore lease sales in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas (off Alaska's north coast), and the offshore royalty tax rate in the region is 19 percent , which would cover operation and maintenance of these facilities down the road. The U nited S tates needs an Arctic governance and acquisition strategy to take full advantage of all the region has to offer and to

protect the people operating in the region and the maritime environment. Neglecting the Arctic reduces the U nited States' ability to reap tremendous economic benefits and could harm U.S. national security interests .

A2 arctic environment turn

link turn --- drilling is inevitable but the US is key to solveSchneider 12 (Michael, Advocacy Director – Clean Air Task Force, “Curb Methane Emissions,” National Journal, 7-25, http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/is-arctic-oil-drilling-ready-f.php?comments=expandall#comments)For several weeks now the public and the media have cast increasing attention on Arctic oil and gas drilling, specifically regarding the plans of Shell to explore in the Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska. This is, pardon the

pun, only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Arctic oil and gas development. Around the Arctic, efforts are ramping up in Russia, Norway, Greenland and Canada to stake a claim to one of the last great reserves of undiscovered oil and gas. According to the United States Geological Survey, the Arctic holds one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered, recoverable oil and natural gas; 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. With Shell’s

imminent entrance into Arctic waters, the debate is turning from “if we drill in the Arctic,” to “how and where we drill in the Arctic.” The discussion to date has primarily revolved around the key questions of oil spills and impacts to marine ecosystems . However, it is also critically important to remember that this debate starts and ends with climate change. The melting of the Arctic due to global warming is what set off the race for Arctic oil and gas. Now, it is incumbent upon the countries and the companies that intend to develop the Arctic to make sure that it is done in the least damaging way possible, and this includes paying very close attention to the global warming pollutants coming from the production: methane, black carbon and carbon dioxide. Pointing the way forward in a new report: (www.catf.us/resources/publications/view/170), Clean Air Task Force has laid out the primary climate risks and mitigation strategies of drilling in the Arctic. Here is a summary of some of the key findings of that report: While oil production is the primary focus of current exploration and production activities due to high oil prices, natural gas is almost always produced along with oil, posing the problem of what to do with it. Crude oil usually contains some amount of “associated” natural gas that is dissolved in the oil or exists as a cap of free gas above the oil in the geological formation. In some cases, this represents a large volume of gas. For example, nearly 3 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) per year of gas is produced in association with oil in Alaska. The largest (but by no means only) potential source of methane pollution is from the leaks or outright venting of this “associated” natural gas. Flaring, the typical way to dispose of this “stranded” gas, is much better than venting, but it releases a tremendous amount of CO2. Worldwide, about 5 trillion cubic feet of gas is flared each year. That’s about 25 percent of the US’s annual natural gas consumption. This leads to the release of about 400 million tons of CO2 per year globally, the equivalent to the annual emissions from over 70 million cars. Black carbon is also emitted from flares, although measurements are lacking to fully understand the potential burden from flaring. What we do know is that the black carbon that flaring will release in the Arctic is particularly harmful, since it is so likely to

settle out on snow or ice, where the dark pollutant rapidly warms the white frozen surface. Many technologies and best practices exist to reduce the impact of oil and gas production both to the Arctic and the global climate . If we are going to extract the oil from the Arctic, we need to do it in a way that does not exacerbate the very real problem that climate change is already posing there. In order to do so, the US must take the lead in ensuring that only the best practices are acceptable when it comes to Arctic exploration and drilling . The technologies and practices below can dramatically reduce the emissions associated with oil and natural gas, in some cases by almost 100%.

china addon – 2ac

Energy abundance solves US-China conflict over the Middle EastMead 12 (Walter Russell, James Clark Chase Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities – Bard College and Editor-at-Large – American Interest, “Energy Revolution 3: The New American Century,” American Interest, 7-18, http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/07/18/energy-revolution-3-the-new-american-century/)On the whole, a world of energy abundance should be particularly good for U.S.-China relations . If both China and the U nited States have large energy reserves at home , and if new discoveries globally are making energy more abundant, there is less chance that China and the U.S. will compete for political influence in places like the Middle East . More energy security at home may also lessen the political pressure inside China to build up its naval forces . Oil may calm the troubled waters around China’s shores. The maritime disputes now causing trouble from Korea and Japan to Malaysia and the Philippines will be easier to manage if the potential undersea energy resources are seen as less vital to national economic security. Nationalist passion will still drive tough stands on the maritime issues, but nationalism is a much stronger force when powerful economic arguments share the agenda of radical nationalist groups. If the South China Sea issue is seen as both a question of national pride and, because of perceived energy supply issues, a vital national interest, Chinese policy will be much tougher than if it is simply a question of pride. Depending on the size of China’s unconventional domestic reserves (and some analysts think the country could have something like the equivalent of double Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves), China will feel marginally less constrained by Washington’s global naval supremacy. As it now stands, in any serious clash with China, the U.S. could bring Beijing to its knees with a naval blockade. With much larger domestic energy production, China would be less vulnerable to this threat. This could translate into a greater willingness to take a hard line on international issues.

Conflict with China will escalate to global nuclear warHunkovic 9 (Lee J, American Military University, “The Chinese-Taiwanese Conflict: Possible Futures of a Confrontation between China, Taiwan and the United States of America”, http://www.lamp-method.org/eCommons/ Hunkovic.pdf)A war between China , Taiwan and the U nited S tates has the potential to escalate into a nuclear conflict and a third world war , therefore, many countries other than the primary actors could be affected by such a conflict, including Japan, both Korea s, Russia, Australia, India and Great Britain, if they were drawn into the war, as well as all other countries in the world that participate in the global economy, in which the United States and China are the two most dominant members. If China were able to successfully annex Taiwan, the possibility exists that they could then plan to attack Japan and begin a policy of aggressive expansionism in East and Southeast Asia, as well

as the Pacific and even into India, which could in turn create an international standoff and deployment of military forces to contain the threat . In any case, if China and the United States engage in a full-scale conflict, there are few countries in the world that will not be economically

and/or militarily affected by it. However, China, Taiwan and United States are the primary actors in this scenario, whose actions will determine its eventual outcome, therefore, other countries will not be considered in this study.

***A2 TOPICALITY***

A2 topicality – “its”

Counter-interp: provisional affirmatives with solvency advocates for indirect action are topical --- companies directly associated to ocean development and exploration is key

“Its” means associated withOxford 10 (Oxford Dictionary, “Of”,http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/its?view=uk)

Pronunciation:/ɪts/ possessive determiner belonging to or associated with a thing previously mentioned or easily identified:turn the camera on its side he chose the area for its atmosphere

Their interpretation is terrible for the topic

a. overlimiting --- crushes aff flexibility and prevents innovation on this topic, giving the neg an unfair advantage that allows them to steal all core aff ground

b. predictable literature base --- ocean exploration

SCHOFIELD 2009 – University of Wollongong (Schofield, C. H. (2009). Blurring the lines: maritime joint development and the cooperative management of ocean resources. Issues in Legal Scholarship, 8 (1), Article 3. http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1373&context=lawpapers)

It is clear from the foregoing review that joint development has proved a popular approach and that numerous examples exist in State practice. Fundamentally, when faced with a deadlock , States have seen the merit in cooperative arrangements that provide an alternative when negotiations become deadlocked, enabling the parties to sidestep seemingly intractable maritime disputes. Maritime joint development thus allows intractable and contentious disputes to be circumvented in such a way that the pragmatic development or management of

the resources or environment in the area of overlapping claims can proceed without delay. In this context it has been argued that joint development agreements offer a means to shift the emphasis to “a fair division of the resources at stake, rather than on the determination of an artificial line.”115

This isn’t a voter, but a solvency press --- mixing burdens makes topicality much more arbitrary. Prefer reasonability because competing interpretations arbitrarily shift the goal post and creates a race to the bottom

A2 topicality – “ocean explore/develop” – useful for cp competition [OCS Mechanism]

J World Energy Law Bus (2013) 6 (3): 210-233.doi: 10.1093/jwelb/jwt008First published online: July 10, 2013

Paul Michael Blyschak*↵* Paul Michael Blyschak is called to the bar in Alberta, New York State and New South Wales and practises energy and corporate/commercial law in Calgary with a focus on international transactions (both inbound and outbound). Prior to practising energy and business law, Mr Blyschak worked in commercial litigation and international commercial arbitration. He has experience in, and has published widely on, international investment disputes, including international energy disputes. Mr Blyschak would like to thank Theodore Stathakos, Justin Turc and Kasia Czekanska, students at law, for their assistance in the research and preparation of this article.

Offshore oil and gas projects amid maritime border disputes: applicable law

Guyana v Suriname: the obligation of states not to jeopardize resolutionIn February of 2004, amid a longstanding maritime dispute stretching back to colonial times, Guyana instituted arbitration proceedings against Suriname under UNCLOS alleging various breaches of international law by Suriname in the disputed waters between them.124 Guyana had in 1998 granted a concession in the contested area of the continental shelf to CGX Resources Inc, a Canadian exploration and development company.125 In 1999, CGX had commissioned seismic exploration of the entirety of its concession. This prompted Suriname in May 2000 to demand that Guyana cease all exploration activities in the disputed territory and that CGX in particular immediately cease all operations beyond certain coordinates, which at that time consisted of preparatory work by an oil rig and drill ship, the C.E. Thornton.126 When the Thornton failed to depart, Suriname sent two patrol boats to the area in June 2000.127 Through the boats, Suriname ordered the Thornton and its service vessels to vacate the area within 12 h, and the crew of the drill ship detached the oil rig from the sea floor and withdrew from the concession area, escorted by the patrol boats.128

The tribunal, registered under the Permanent Court of Arbitration for the purpose of the proceedings, held unanimously that Suriname’s expulsion of CGX and its contractors through its patrol boats constituted a threat of the use of force in violation of UNCLOS, the UN Charter and general international law in that it was more akin to a threat of military action than mere law enforcement activity.129 Importantly, the tribunal also held that both Guyana and Suriname had failed to meet their duties under Articles 74(3) and 83(3) of UNCLOS, being the obligation to make every effort to enter into provisional arrangements of a practical nature, pending final delimitation, and not to jeopardize or hamper efforts to reach such final agreement.130

Guyana had failed to meet this standard primarily in the run-up to the patrol boat incident, ie by not engaging Suriname in discussions regarding its drilling plans at a far earlier date.131 In particular, the tribunal held that Guyana should have (1) given Suriname official and detailed notice of its planned activities (apparently Suriname had only become alert to CGX’s operations by way of press release by the company); (2) sought the cooperation of Suriname in undertaking the proposed drilling programme; (3) offered to share the statistical and technical results of the exploration; (4) provided to Suriname the opportunity to observe the drilling programme; and (5) offered to share the financial benefits of the drilling programme with Suriname.132

Suriname, on the other hand, was found to have violated its obligations primarily through its immediate resort to a display of force rather than a resort to softer diplomatic efforts.133 In the eyes of the tribunal, Suriname should have attempted to engage Guyana ‘in a spirit of understanding and cooperation” rather than opting for a “harder stance’.134 Suriname could have done this by attempting to bring Guyana to the negotiating table, including by accepting a last minute offer of negotiation from Guyana.135 Suriname could also have made such an acceptance conditional on the immediate cessation by CGX of all its operations rather than resorting immediately to ‘self-help’ in threatening the CGX rig as it did.136

Guyana v Suriname: permitted exploration and development operations amid unresolved territorial disputes Importantly, the Guyana v Suriname tribunal also held (1) that certain types of exploratory and development works by oil companies in disputed maritime territory are acceptable under international law, and (2) that competing territorial claims should not stifle economic development of natural resources by the interested States.

The tribunal held that, in ‘the context of activities surrounding hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, two classes of activities in disputed waters are … permissible’.137 These are, on the one hand, ‘activities undertaken by the parties pursuant to provisional arrangements of a practical nature’, and on the other hand, ‘acts which, although unilateral, would not

have the effect of jeopardizing or hampering the reaching of a final agreement on the delimitation of the maritime boundary’.138 Pronouncing further on the scope of the latter category, the tribunal held that ‘unilateral acts which do not constitute a physical change to the marine environment’ would generally qualify, while acts that do cause ‘physical change’ would not.139 This then led the tribunal to make a distinction between ‘activities of the kind that lead to a permanent physical change, such as exploitation of oil and gas reserves, and those that do not, such as seismic exploration’.140

In reaching its decision the tribunal considered the decision of the ICJ in the Aegean Sea Continental Shelf Case concerning Greece and Turkey. In 1974, Turkey had granted exploration permits to an area of the Aegean Sea over which Greece contested the country’s sovereignty.141 When Turkey proceeded to authorize scientific exploration expeditions to the licence areas (along with guardian warships), Greece applied to the ICJ for interim measures.142 In particular, Greece claimed that the granting of the licences and the operations of the exploration vessels constituted contraventions of its sovereign right to the exploration and exploitation of the area, and that the result was a breach of its right as a coastal State to the exclusivity of knowledge in respect of its continental shelf amounting to irreparable prejudice.143 The ICJ disagreed, holding that Turkey’s actions did not justify or necessitate an interim measure of protection.144

In interpreting the ICJ’s decision, the Guyana–Suriname tribunal held that it was necessary to distinguish between ‘activities of a transitory character and activities that risk irreparable prejudice to the position of the other party’.145 In this regard, it highlighted that the ICJ’s ruling established (1) that seismic exploration does not involve any risk of physical damage to the seabed or subsoil, (2) that such activities are of a transitory character and do not involve the establishment of fixed installations and (3) that no operations involving the actual appropriation or other use of natural resources were embarked upon.146 The tribunal therefore found that, while it ‘should not be permissible for a party to a dispute to undertake any unilateral activity that might affect the other party’s rights in a permanent manner’, neither should ‘international courts or tribunals … stifle the parties’ ability to pursue economic development in a disputed area during a boundary dispute, as the resolution of such disputes will typically be a time-consuming process’.147 In other words, the tribunal held that, while maritime territorial disputes suspend the entitlement of the disputing States to exploit the resources within the disputed area in a permanent manner (that is, through drilling and extraction), this principle should not be taken so far as to prevent the States from undertaking less invasive or physically disturbing development activities (namely, seismic exploration).

OCS leasing for ocean developmentBOEM ‘5(Report to Congress: Comprehensive Inventory of U.S. OCS Oil and Natural Gas Resources, 2005, http://www.boem.gov/uploadedFiles/BOEM/Oil_and_Gas_Energy_Program/Resource_Evaluation/Resource_Assessment/2006-FinalInventoryReportDeliveredToCongress.pdf)The ongoing legislative and executive withdrawals mean that   large portions of the OCS , covering about 611 million acres, are off-limits to oil and gas leasing , exploration and development. However,   access can also be restricted   to otherwise available areas of the OCS   for a variety of reasons , including administrative restrictions   for other purposes— such as for national defense or for protection of archaeological, cultural or environmentally-sensitive marine resources .  New uses of the OCS could also affect the oil and gas industry’s use of the seabed for exploration and development on existing leases, as well as restrict potential development on areas offered for lease.   Many of these constraints on activity represent important and necessary   regulatory or administrative requirements   to protect the environment and ensure safe and effective multiple uses of ocean resources .

A2 topicality – “ocean explore/develop” – useful for cp competition [BOEM Mechanism]

Bureau of ocean energy management holds Leasing Nieger ’12 (Chris, “What ‘4 More Years’ Means for Offshore Drilling”, The Motley Fool, 11-28-2012, http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/11/28/what-4-more-years-means-for-offshore-drilling.aspx)At the end of November, the government will auction 20 million acres worth of leases in the western Gulf of Mexico, and this coming March, about 38 million acres in the central Gulf will be available. Some of the leases in the central Gulf will be in the coveted area of BP's Macondo well, where the 2010 disaster took place. The leases sold for the central Gulf could produce from 460 million to 890 million barrels of oil and up to 4 trillion feet of natural gas. Large projects like ExxonMobil's (NYSE: XOM ) Hadrian field and Chevron's Jack and St. Malo projects are expected to help increase Gulf oil production by 28% by 2022, according to The Wall Street Journal. But it's not just the Gulf of Mexico getting new offshore leases. Three lease auctions are planned for the Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea, and Cook Inlet, off Alaska's shores . Royal Dutch Shell is already in the Chukchi Sea with exploratory drilling vessels, but has failed a number of government tests that would allow it to actually drill for oil. ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP ) is also exploring the Arctic region, and the company is on schedule to drill its first well in the Chukchi Sea in 2014. The Foolish takeaway If you want to know if offshore oil drilling is going to slow down, the answer is that it already has. But that's only half of the answer . The Obama administration is offering more leases now than it has in the past, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans to hold 12 Gulf of Mexico lease auctions before August 2017.

A2 topicality – “ocean explore/develop” – useful for cp competition [Misc]

producing oil is part of exploration & development

PEW 2010 – last cited in 2010, Pew Charitable Trusts Organization (Pew, http://oceansnorth.org/exploration-development-risks)

EXPLORATION & DEVELOPMENT RISKS What Causes Spills? Where there are people, there are mistakes. The causes of BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico have not yet been determined. But the Exxon Valdez oil spill was caused by human error. The Montara well blowout and spill in the Timor Sea in 2009 was very likely caused by

human error in setting the cement casing. Eighty percent of spills and accidents in all industries, including oil and gas, are estimated to be caused by human error. Additionally, the Arctic Ocean presents an array of hazardous operating conditions. The difficulty of responding to BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico was exacerbated by the difficult conditions of extreme water depth. In the Arctic, dangerous conditions could include gale force winds, extreme fog, prolonged periods of darkness, shifting sea ice and sub-zero temperatures. When multiple risk factors combine, accidents are even more likely to occur. For instance, the aging oil infrastructure at Prudhoe Bay is succumbing to corrosion and inadequate monitoring of

that problem has led to a spate of recent spills on the North Slope. An increase in oil exploration and production will create oil spill risks from offshore platforms, associated pipelines, storage tanks and shipping activities. At the same time, changing sea ice conditions are opening new shipping routes and extending the season for existing routes. Increasing vessel traffic will only add to the potential risk of oil spills beyond the oil and gas industry.

key government ocean exploration and development agencies agree

BOLAND 2013 - Biological Oceanographer, Minerals Management Service (Boland, Greg, “Oil and Gas Exploration”, January 28, 2013, http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/06mexico/background/oil/oil.html)

Oil and Gas Exploration This project, funded jointly by Minerals Management Service (MMS) and NOAA Ocean Explorer (OE), will focus on exploration, survey, and experimental work on chemosynthetic communities and hardbottom habitats located deeper than 1,000 m (3,280 ft) on the lower continental slope of the Gulf of Mexico. The MMS is funding this study for a total of $3,291,368. As a bureau within the Department of the Interior, the MMS is responsible for the management of offshore energy and minerals on the 1.76-billion acres of the outer continental shelf (OCS), while protecting the human, marine, and coastal environments. The MMS oversees production of about 23% of the natural gas and 30% of the oil produced in the United States, a significant contribution to our nation's economic strength and national security. All but a small percentage of this production comes from the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico OCS Region contains 43-million acres under lease. Since 1982, the MMS has managed OCS production of 9.6-trillion barrels of oil and

more than 109-trillion cubic feet of natural gas for U.S. consumption. There is one major act or legal mandate that serves as the basis for the offshore program of MMS – the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act ( OCSLA ). This Act of 1953 called for the federal government to manage the oil, gas, and other mineral resources of the OCS to ensure national security, reduce dependence on foreign sources, protect the nation’s environmental health, and conserve the precious resources of the OCS. As a part of the mandate for environmental protection from this act and others, the MMS environmental studies program was started in 1971. Beginning in 1978, the program emphasis shifted focus from synthesis of existing information to research efforts directed to the specific resource-management decisions associated with the OCS. Through FY 2003, over $750 million has been invested in OCS environmental and socioeconomic studies. With the first discovery of the chemosynthetic communities in the Gulf of Mexico in the 1980s, the MMS recognized the special value of these communities and worked to ensure oil and gas activities avoided impact to areas of known communities, or even areas that had the potential to have chemosynthetic communities, unless visual evidence was otherwise provided by industry. Extensive deep-water coral communities in the Gulf have only recently been studied after the discovery of the largest known deepwater coral community during a survey for the oil and gas industry in

1990. Knowledge of these kinds of unique deep-water communities provides critical information to estimate the potential effects of deepwater oil and gas exploration and production and allow refinement of protective measures. Current basic understanding of chemosynthetic communities and deep-water coral habitats in the Gulf has been largely limited to depths shallower than 1,000 m.

***A2 COUNTERPLANS***

A2 generic process cp

the cp ruins certainty, guarantees market failureGriles 2003 (Lisa, Deputy Secretary – Department of the Interior, “Energy Production on Federal Lands,” Hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, 4-30)Mr. GRILES. America’s public lands have an abundant opportunity for exploration and development of renewable and nonrenewable energy resources. Energy reserves contained on the D epartment o f the I nterior’s onshore and offshore Federal lands are very important to meet ing our current and future estimates of what it is going to take to continue to supply America’s energy demand. Estimates suggest that these lands contain

approximately 68 percent of the undiscovered U.S. oil resources and 74 percent of the undiscovered natural gas resources. President Bush has developed a national energy policy that laid out a comprehensive, long-term energy strategy for America’s future. That strategy recognizes we need to raise domestic production of energy, both renewable and nonrenewable, to meet our dependence for energy. For oil and gas, the United States uses about 7 billion barrels a year, of which about 4 billion are currently imported and 3 billion are

domestically produced. The President proposed to open a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to environmentally responsible oil and gas exploration. Now there is a new and environmentally friendly technology , similar to directional drilling , with mobile platforms , self-containing drilling units. These things will allow producers to access large energy reserves with almost no footprint on the tundra . Each day, even since I have assumed

this job, our ability to minimize our effect on the environment continues to improve to where it is almost nonexistent in such areas as even in Alaska. According to the latest

oil and gas assessment, ANWR is the largest untapped source of domestic production available to us. The production for ANWR would equal about 60 years of imports from Iraq. The National Energy Policy also encourages development of cleaner, more diverse portfolios of domestic renewable energy sources. The renewable policy in areas cover geothermal, wind, solar, and biomass. And it urges research on hydrogen as an alternate energy source. To advance the National Energy Policy, the Bureau of Land Management and the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Lab last week announced the release of a renewable energy report. It identifies and evaluates renewable energy resources on public lands. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit this for the record.* This report, which has just come out, assess the potential for renewable energy on public lands. It is a very good report that we hope will allow for the private sector, after working with the various other agencies, to where can we best use renewable resource, and how do we take this assessment and put it into the land use planning that we are currently going, so that right-of-ways and understanding of what renewable resources can be done in the West can, in fact, have a better opportunity. The Department completed the first of an energy inventory this year. Now the EPCA report, which is laying here, also, Mr. Chairman, is an estimate of the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas. Part one of that report covers five oil and gas basins. The second part of the report will be out later this year. Now this report, it is not—there are people who have different opinions of it. But the fact is we believe it will be a good guidance tool, as we look at where the oil and gas potential is and where we need to do land use planning. And as we update these land use plannings and do our EISs, that will help guide further the private sector, the public sector, and all stakeholders on how we can better do land use planning and develop oil and gas in a sound fashion. Also, I have laying here in front of me the two EISs that have been done on

the two major coal methane basins in the United States, San Juan Basis and the Powder River Basin. Completing these reports, which are in draft, will increase and offer the opportunity for production of natural gas with coal bed methane. Now these reports are in draft and, once completed, will authorize and allow for additional exploration and development. It has taken 2 years to get these in place. It has taken 2 years to get some of these in place. This planning process that Congress has initiated under

FLPMA and other statutes allows for a deliberative, conscious understanding of what the impacts are. We believe that when these are finalized, that is in fact what will occur. One of the areas which we believe that the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management is and is going to engage in is coordination with landowners. Mr. Chairman, the private sector in the oil and gas industry must be good neighbors with the ranchers in the West.

The BLM is going to be addressing the issues of bonding requirements that will assure that landowners have their surface rights and their values protected. BLM is working to make the consultation process with the landowners, with the States and local governments and other Federal agencies more efficient and meaningful. But we must assure that the surface owners are protected and the values of their ranches are in fact assured. And by being good neighbors, we can do that. In the BLM land use planning process, we have priorities, ten current resource management planning areas that contain the major oil and gas

reserves that are reported out in the EPCA study. Once this process is completed, then we can move forward with consideration of development of the natural gas. We are also working with the Western Governors’ Association and the Western Utilities Group. The purpose is to identify and designate right-of-way corridors on public lands. We would like to do it now as to where right-of-way corridors make sense and put those in our land use planning processes, so that when the need is truly identified, utilities, energy companies, and the public will know where they are Instead of taking two years to amend a land use plan, hopefully this will expedite and have future opportunity so that when the need is there, we can go ahead and make that investment through the private sector. It should speed up the process of right-of-way permits for both pipelines and electric transmission. Now let me switch to the offshore, the Outer Continental Shelf. It is a huge contributor to our Nation’s energy and economic security. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, everything you have talked about so far is onshore. Mr. GRILES. That is correct. The CHAIRMAN. You now will speak to offshore. Mr. GRILES. Yes, sir, I will. Now we are keeping on

schedule the holding lease sales in the areas that are available for leasing. In the past year, scheduled sales in several areas were either delayed, canceled, or put under moratoria, even though they were in the 5-year plan. It undermined certainty. It made investing, particularly in the Gulf, more risky. We have approved a 5-year

oil and gas leasing program in July 2002 that calls for 20 new lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and several other areas of the offshore, specifically in Alaska

by 2007. Now our estimates indicate that these areas contain resources up to 22 billion barrels of oil and 61 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. We are also acting to raise energy production from these offshore areas by providing royalty relief on the OCS leases for new deep wells that are drilled in shallow water. These are at depths that heretofore were very and are very costly to produce from and costly to drill to. We need to encourage that exploration. These deep wells, which are greater than 15,000 feet in depth, are expected to access between 5 to 20 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and can be developed quickly due to existing infrastructure and the shallow water . We have also issued a final rule in July 2002 that allows companies to apply for a lease extension, giving them more time to analyze complex geological data that underlies salt domes. That is, where geologically salt overlays the geologically clay. And you try to

do seismic, and the seismic just gets distorted. So we have extended the lease terms, so that hopefully those companies can figure out where and where to best drill. Vast resources of oil

and natural gas lie, we hope, beneath these sheets of salt in the OCS in the Gulf of Mexico. But it is very difficult to get clear seismic images. We are also

working to create a process of reviewing and permitting alternative energy sources on the OCS lands. We have sent legislation to Congress that would give the Minerals Management Service of the D epartment o f the I nterior clear authority to lease parts of the OCS for renewable energy. The

renewables could be wind, wave, or solar energy, and related projects that are auxiliary to oil and gas development, such as offshore staging facilities and emergency medical facilities. We need this authority in order to be able to truly give the private sector what are the rules to play from and buy , so they can have certainty about where to go .

***A2 DISADS***

A2 oil price da – aff – oil prices resilient

oil prices are resilient --- they follow supply and demand effects

PHILIPS 5/9/2014 – Bloomberg businessweek associate editor, Matthew Philips, “Why Oil Prices Haven’t Gone Crazy”, http://peakoil.com/business/why-oil-prices-havent-gone-crazy

The oil markets have plenty of reasons to be spooked. In Libya, home to Africa’s largest reserves, production has fallen more than 80 percent since militias seized control of the country’s biggest ports last summer. Most of Iran’s oil remains trapped as well. Sanctions aimed at punishing Iran for its nuclear weapons program have crippled its crude exports by 1.5 million barrels a day. Nigeria is in the midst of its worst oil crisis in years: Rising violence, plus rampant sabotage and theft, have knocked out about 300,000 barrels of oil output a day. In

Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, production has remained unchanged after years of underinvestment. Political chaos and violence are keeping 3.5 million barrels of daily oil production off the market, according to estimates by Citigroup (C). With tensions heating up over Ukraine, pressure is building for Western countries to impose Iran-style sanctions on Russia, the world’s largest oil producer. That would likely send prices soaring and push Europe, which gets 30 percent of its oil from

Russia, into recession. Yet through all the turmoil, oil markets have been strangely complacent . The price of Brent crude oil, the most traded oil contract in the world, fell from $110 a barrel on April 24 to $107 on May 6. The past three years have been one of the most stable periods for oil prices in recent memory, says Eric Lee, an oil

analyst with Citigroup. Last year marked the smallest range of daily price movements in more than 10 years, according to the U.S. Department

of Energy. STORY: Want Cheaper Oil? Pray for Stability in Libya The oil markets remain placid because almost all the oil production lost over the past few years has been replaced by the U.S. shale boom and increased Canadian production . U.S. shale oil production started to rise quickly in early 2011, right as the Arab Spring was kicking off. Since then, daily oil output in the U.S. has climbed by about 3 million barrels, to more than 8 million barrels. Canada has added more than 1 million barrels to its daily oil output since May 2011. “North America’s shale boom has been a huge calming factor,” says Lysle Brinker, an oil analyst

at IHS Energy. “Without it, we might be seeing $150 oil right now.” It’s hard to overstate the impact that rising U.S. oil output has had on global energy trade. Imports now make up only 28 percent of all the petroleum the U.S. consumes, down from 60 percent in 2005 . In 2010 the U.S. was importing about 1 million barrels a day from Nigeria; now it’s 38,000. Much of the oil the U.S. used to import now goes to Asia. That’s helped keep markets well-supplied and prices immune from turmoil.

A2 oil competition da [canada-china]

keystone thumps this disad and

BLOOMBERG 5/3/2014 (Canada Finds China Option No Easy Answer to Keystone Snub, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-02/how-canada-s-flirtation-with-a-china-oil-market-soured.html)

Oil was top of mind. He noted that a single country -- the U.S. -- took 99 percent of Canada’s exports, a situation he described as contrary to Canada’s commercial interests. “You know,” he said, “we want to sell

our energy to people who want to buy our energy. It’s that simple.” Chinese Juggernaut The Chinese and Canadians in attendance had long waited for Harper to embrace the Chinese economic juggernaut. They held him up for half-an-hour posing for pictures. As he finally took his seat for a group photo with the organizers, he turned to Peter Harder, a former deputy

minister of foreign affairs and president of the Canada China Business Council. “Do you think the Americans were listening?” he asked. That Harper now found himself in the People’s Republic hawking Alberta’s oil spoke to the depth of his frustration with Obama. His view, according to people close to Harper who knew his thinking but aren’t authorized to speak, was that sensible Americans would understand the folly of allowing Canada’s massive oil sands reserves, estimated at 168 billion recoverable barrels, to be sucked up by China, a rising economic and political rival. Yet if the Americans – most particularly a president inclined

to indulge his green base at Canada’s expense - didn’t pay heed, then Harper had primed the pump to do business with the Chinese. The problem is that, his earlier declarations aside, it wasn’t that simple – not then and not now. Important elements of his Conservative party either shared Harper’s misgivings about China’s human-rights record and repression of religion, or were downright hostile to the country . In British Columbia, with its zest for environmentalism, green and aboriginal groups had already emerged hostile to the idea that its pristine lands ought to be put at risk for a pipeline, known as Northern Gateway, to feed China’s fossil-fuel-propelled growth --

never mind how supertankers might damage the province’s postcard coasts. This is the story of how Canada’s Plan B rejoinder to Obama’s repeated Keystone delays became mired down, jeopardizing future oil-sands development and production at a cost, according to a Calgary research group , of more than C$400 billion ($365 billion) in lost economic growth over the next 25 years. It was put together after on- and off-the-record interviews with more than 60 government and industry officials, environmentalists and aboriginal leaders. Some government officials close to Harper asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak. Go Forward Jason MacDonald, Harper’s director of communications, said it “would be inaccurate to suggest that any one pipeline project constitutes a ‘plan.’” As for Canada’s long-term relationship with China, MacDonald said he expects the Harper government “in due course” to approve an agreement to promote investment between the two countries. A spokesman for China’s ambassador to Canada didn’t return calls seeking comment. Harper, in a January interview, said he couldn’t discuss Gateway, yet was confident that “over time,” one of several projects being proposed to move oil-sands production to the Pacific or Atlantic coasts will go forward. Ultimately, Harper’s cabinet has the final say as to whether the 1,177-kilometer, C$6.5 billion Gateway project is approved. A decision is required by mid June. To kill it could undermine his arguments that Keystone ought to be built, arming anti-Keystone factions with a powerful argument that Canada isn’t willing to

practice what it preaches to Obama. Legal Brawl To approve it risks a political and legal brawl. Some green and aboriginal groups are already sounding warnings of massive civil disobedience and lawsuits in British Columbia if Harper says yes. To change the game – with adjustments to the route and revenue sharing, for instance – could conceivably buy peace, at a cost. The government is “carefully” examining a Dec. 19 report by regulators on Northern Gateway, Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford told reporters today in Ottawa. A regulatory panel recommended approving the pipeline subject to 209 conditions. The

government’s decision will be based on “science and facts,” he said. Mixed messages to China by the Harper government have also frayed relations between the two countries and damped Chinese enthusiasm for doing business with Canada . Raw Ambivalence “We’re long on rhetoric and short on strategic thinking and planning ,” said Wenran Jiang, a University of Alberta China specialist who consults to the Alberta government and energy industry. “You can’t engage the second-largest economy in the world in such a way.” Harper’s outreach on that February day in Guangzhou masked a raw ambivalence toward China and not just over human rights and religious repression. According to his security services, Harper also was critical of China’s espionage activities and intimidation of dissidents within Canada. Against this principled Harper stood Harper the realist: The oil industry, centered in his home province of Alberta, increasingly recognized it needed new markets for its oil. When first elected prime minister, Harper had firmly embraced an anti-China wing of his party, adopting their belief that China needed Canada and its resources more than Canada needed China, according to advisers familiar with

the strategy who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak. Cold Diplomacy This led to an approach often described internally as cold diplomacy with warm economics. Harper showed his colors on his first Asia trip in November 2006 for an Asia-Pacific summit in Hanoi. The plan was for the relatively untraveled prime minister to keep a low profile, observe

and learn, according to people familiar with the thinking. Harper, though, had a message to send. He’d said he believed previous Canadian governments had been too accommodating to China. On the first leg of the journey, he wandered to the back of the plane and told reporters – in a reference clearly aimed at China -- Canadians didn’t want his government to sell out to “the almighty dollar.” The remark, filed by reporters during a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska, landed like a bombshell in Hanoi. Chinese officials had already taken umbrage over the new Canadian government granting honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama two months earlier. Canceled Meeting Now they canceled Harper’s scheduled one-on-one with Chinese President Hu Jintao, pro-forma for a new G-8 leader. Harper ordered his advisers to get the meeting back in the book, according to people who were there. The Chinese, still fuming, played cat and mouse before finally consenting to what diplomats call a pull-aside. If Harper wanted to meet Hu, the Chinese said, he could partake of a brief conversation just outside the men’s bathroom. The Chinese also had a message to send. Harper, as the Chinese knew, was worked up as well by the recent jailing of an ethnic Uighur imam, Husseyin Celil, a refugee from China who had emigrated to Canada in 2001 and obtained Canadian citizenship. China refused to recognize Canada’s right to consular access. Outraged, Harper let no opportunity pass to press the case, broaching it directly with Hu outside the men’s room. Cabinet ministers and diplomats were instructed to protest at every meeting with a Chinese counterpart. It went on for years. Diplomats or ministers who didn’t toe the line got a sharp dressing down, according to people familiar with the policy. Revised Version Six months into Harper’s term, as members of the Canadian business community with Chinese interests began to question the new tone, a special cabinet session was held to discuss internal differences over the China policy. The Foreign Affairs department, as was standard, prepared an overview to kick off discussions. A group of young political aides in Harper’s office, judging it too tame, took control of the document and told Foreign Minister Peter MacKay to substitute their version, according to people involved in the discussions. The tone was anything but accommodating: It played up fears of Chinese territorial ambitions and reached back to 1979 to critique the one-child policy as symptomatic of a society lacking moral grounding. Both sides dug in their heels; MacKay brought forward the version by the young turks. The session exposed cabinet divisions on China that persist to this day. As the internal debate over China continued, the second question - how to get oil to Asia - still hung out there. The trade route from the oil sands to China ran through British Columbia. It was as green as you get, being, among other things, the birthplace of the environmental group Greenpeace. Disputed Land Also, few British Columbia aboriginal groups have settled treaties with the government, meaning the proposed Gateway route would have to traverse vast swathes of still disputed land claimed by First Nations, as aboriginal groups in Canada are called. Gateway was the brainchild of Pat Daniel, who floated it soon after becoming Enbridge Inc. (ENB) chief executive officer in 2001 and was still on the scene in 2012, meeting Harper for the first time on the China trip. Long before anyone else, Daniel could see what he called “a big wave of oil sands crude coming towards us” that the existing marketplace was unlikely to absorb. A pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific Ocean could change all that. “Even with Keystone XL, Canadians still would not get full international pricing for their oil. Gateway goes to the real market, the world market, rather than just the U.S. market,” Daniel, 67, said in a recent interview. “If you’re an energy superpower and you’ve only

got one market, one country, you’re not truly an energy superpower because people have too much control over you.” Raucous Politics The oil executives, however, would soon discover they had a lot to learn about British Columbia’s raucous environmental and aboriginal politics. In August 2009, Daniel and his pipeline president John Carruthers landed in a float plane at Hartley Bay, a sprawling cove of dark water

hemmed in by fir-clad mountains. Supertankers would have to pass here from Gateway’s terminus point at Kitimat as they collected heavy crude for voyaging across the Pacific. The Enbridge executives were to meet the leadership of a First Nation tribe called the Gitga’at to talk up the virtues of the project. Centered in Hartley Bay, the Gitga’at are known for three things: their courage, hospitality and a visceral love of their lands and water. Ferry Rescue One of their hosts was a local councilor named Marven Robinson. He had played a central role in a March 2006 incident when a ferry carrying 101 passengers and crew, the Queen of the North, ripped open its hull 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Hartley Bay. The Gitga’at rushed out to sea in the dead of night in small fishing boats and recreational vessels, saving all but two passengers. Robinson, who had shuttled many of the survivors to shore, now wanted Daniel to understand why his people felt the waters around the village, with their warren of narrow channels, rocky islands and submerged reefs, constituted an inappropriate venue for supertanker traffic. Robinson, in an interview, said he told Daniel, “We see exactly how this kind of thing will be dealt with and that’s why we’re so against tankers in our territory.” Historical Sites As was their custom, the Gitga’at wanted to lavish their guests with hospitality. Daniel and Carruthers, fearing the weather was worsening, chose to get back on their Twin Otter and skipped a tour of historical sites, further alienating the locals, according to people familiar with the incident. Over the next several weeks, Carruthers, who confirmed he and Daniel left early, said he called to ask how he could help persuade the Gitga’at to change their defiant no to Northern Gateway into a yes. The answer was he couldn’t. Today, the community of 200 is plastered with “no tankers” signs along the wooden boardwalks. The foyer of the school is adorned with ceremonial canoe paddles, cedar-fiber weavings and student presentations encouraging fellow residents to “defend our planet against attacks by corporations like Enbridge.” The depth of the disdain runs deep. British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, who has kept her distance from the project, recalled the feedback she got from a Grade 6 student when she visited a school to talk about debating. “Dear Ms. Clark. Thank you for coming and speaking to us about debating. It’s really going to help me get a good mark. And also, I hope you will decide you want to hate Enbridge,” the student wrote. National Interest If the Enbridge team saw its overtures rebuffed, Harper’s people were faring little better in their belated effort to get Gateway moving. In January 2012, just as Obama rejected Keystone, regulatory hearings into Northern Gateway were set to begin. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver had already caused a stir six months earlier, in what may have been a slip of the tongue, by citing the project as being in the national interest. Environmentalists accused the government of bias. Oliver raised the temperature further on the eve of the hearings by releasing an open letter denouncing “environmental and other radical groups” for trying to hijack the country’s regulatory system by exploiting “any loophole they can find,” stacking public hearings to ensure delays that would “kill good projects” and using “funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.” ‘Little Late’ Oliver’s broadside, at a time when the government was trying to shore up support, only fomented more criticism, both inside and outside government. “By attacking all the groups that were raising environmental concerns, those groups were branded as radicals, pretty much described as enemies of Canada,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs. Oliver would later try, unsuccessfully, to persuade Phillip into supporting the government’s resource-development agenda. The chief told the minister, “it’s a little late in the day.” Oliver, now finance minister, said the letter wasn’t him going rogue or off message. The industry has done a poor job parrying green criticisms, he said. “We needed to get people’s attention and say, ‘Well wait a minute, that’s been the prevailing narrative but it’s simply not true.’” The emerging coalition of environmentalists and aboriginals opposing the Harper government’s economic imperative of getting oil-sands production to market was driving the project’s proponents to distraction. They would soon be joined by celebrities. Alberta Support Progressive Conservative Alison Redford, who had won a surprise victory in October 2011 to become Alberta’s premier, said in an interview that she remembered looking up at the television late one night after her victory as she puzzled over all the pipeline opposition. Shocked, she saw a trailer scrolling across the bottom of a news channel with a headline, “Redford opposes Northern Gateway.” An ardent Gateway backer, Redford, who stepped down in March for unrelated reasons, said she was beside herself, fearing some remark made by her rookie team had been misconstrued. “We screwed up big time,” she remembered thinking. Actually, it was actor Robert Redford. All sides agree on one point. Enbridge, accustomed to oil-friendly Alberta with its capillary veins of pipe running in all directions, misjudged the temperament of British Columbia, and particularly the green, anti-oil leanings of the First Nations peoples. Non Grata In late 2012, Al Monaco replaced Daniel as Enbridge CEO. Though Calgary-based Enbridge has made subsequent overtures to the Gitga’at and other tribes, opposition has if anything hardened. The company remains persona non grata in many quarters. Premier Clark, according to people close to her, has quietly ducked every opportunity to meet with Monaco or other Enbridge executives. Even pipeline champion Oliver has his limits. While attending an energy conference in Houston last year, the consulate had scheduled him for a photo op with Monaco. He was willing to meet but made it clear there would be no photo, according to a person privy to the conversation. Monaco, in an interview, conceded mistakes were made. “There are things we could have done differently,” he said. “We probably should have spent more time building trust.” Enbridge has adjusted how it engages communities, according to Monaco, pointing to establishing community advisory boards and taking opponents to Michigan to see how it has dealt with a serious 2010 spill into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. First

Visit On the China front, things remained complicated. Harper’s embrace of China had been long in coming and short on his normal all- in gusto. In 2008, he had taken a controversial pass on the Beijing Olympics and he did not arrive for his first visit until December 2009 -- almost four years after coming to power . The biggest influence on his evolving attitude, say people familiar with his thinking, was the 2008-09 economic meltdown. It made plain that China was simply too influential to keep at arm’s length. Canada’s share of trade and investment were falling and the Chinese leadership had withheld an economically significant tourism designation from Canada. “After the financial crisis, we recognized that China is too important not to treat more subtly,” said Mark Cameron, a senior Harper policy adviser who shared the initial aversion to China. “We had that luxury in the early years. The economy was going well. Now we had to talk to them on their own terms.” Settling Scores The 2009 trip started with a verbal settling of scores. “This is your first visit to China and this is the first meeting between the Chinese Premier and a Canadian prime minister in almost five years,” then-Premier Wen Jiabao publicly scolded Harper. “Five years is too long a time for China-Canada relations and that’s why there are comments in the media that your visit is one that should have taken place earlier.” According to David Mulroney, Harper’s hand-picked ambassador, China was frustrated by Canadian policy. It had invested in Australia with positive results and wanted to diversify to Canada. It had been waiting for Harper to come around. Post-Guangzhou, Harper’s changed tone had become clear. In 2007, upon a visit by the Dalai Lama, he made a big fuss over him, including a rare photo-op in his Parliament Hill office, despite knowing it would annoy the Chinese. Now, in 2012, with the Dalai Lama again in Ottawa two months after the Guangzhou speech, Harper kept it to “a private courtesy meeting” – a brisk 20 minutes on a Friday afternoon. The Harper policy looked much like all those other countries beating a path to China. Nexen Drama Then came the drama over Nexen Inc. In November 2011, when Obama phoned Harper to tell him of the Nebraska-related Keystone delay, Oliver, a former investment banker, had already had been working China both as a market and a source of investment. Word was that

Harper had immediately dispatched Oliver to China but “actually, I was already there,” Oliver recalled. One of the major deliverables from the February 2012 China visit had been a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, a pact Harper hailed following a meeting with Premier Wen in the Great Hall of the People. It needed only its t’s crossed and i’s dotted. At the same time, Oliver and a handful of energy industry CEOs were meeting Wang Yilin, chairman of Cnooc Ltd., (883) China’s biggest offshore oil explorer. Seven months earlier, Cnooc had purchased Opti Canada Inc., a failed petroleum producer with a minority stake in an oil-sands project in Long Lake, Alberta. Market Principles Oliver and Wang waxed enthusiastic over possible deals, Wang assuring the Canadian that Cnooc was run on market principles. Calgary-based Nexen owned the rest of the Long Lake project. Throughout the five-day trip, Harper hammered home the message about a new era of energy relations. Cnooc interpreted the pitch alongside Oliver’s effusiveness to mean the Canadian government wouldn’t stand in the way if Cnooc tried to acquire Nexen, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking. In the previous seven years, Chinese state-owned enterprises such as PetroChina Co. and China Petrochemical Corp. (386) had put $11 billion into minority positions in oil-sands projects. Cnooc decided the time had arrived for a bold stroke. On July 23, 2012, five months after the Harper visit, the company launched a

$15.1-billion offer for Nexen, the biggest Chinese foreign takeover attempt in the world. The Conservative political base recoiled at the prospect of Canadian resources falling into the hands of Chinese state-owned enterprises and Harper’s old doubts about China resurfaced, according to people privy to his thinking. The leading cabinet naysayer was Jason Kenney, who, first as Harper’s parliamentary secretary and later immigration minister, had built enough influence through his courting of Conservative-leaning ethnic communities to be touted as a leading contender to eventually succeed Harper. Exceptional Circumstances He took it upon himself to investigate how Cnooc might be blocked, organizing a meeting with investment bankers, corporate lawyers and the grandees of the oil industry at the venerable Calgary Petroleum Club. A consensus emerged that further incursions by Chinese state-owned enterprises would imperil Canadian control over the oil sands -- jeopardizing jobs in Calgary and technological leadership over unconventional oil recovery methods. Eventually, Harper held his nose and approved the deal, worried that to kill it would send the wrong message to other foreign investors. He made plain though that any future takeovers in the oil sands by state-owned enterprises would only be approved in the most exceptional of circumstances. “To be blunt,” he told a press conference televised live, “Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our governments only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead.” China Irritant

And to date, more than two years after Guangzhou, the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement remains unratified by the Harper government, something the University of Alberta’s Jiang cites as an irritant to China. Former Ambassador Mulroney says the February 2012

visit was the high water mark of relations. While many nations struggle with how to deal with China, he said “it’s very acute in Canada.” Reflecting back on Guangzhou, he added, “One speech does not a strategy make.”

A2 oil competition da [canada – canada relations impact defense]

Relations have a laundry list of alt causes and resiliency solves the impactAndre de Nesnera, VOA News, December 11, ‘4, The Epoch Times, “Some Trade Issues Divide US, Canada,” http://english.epochtimes.com/news/4-12-11/24897.html

President Bush recently visited Canada, his first trip abroad since his re-election. The two neighboring countries are strong allies and have deep ties that bind them. But there are some issues, especially dealing with trade, that still divide Ottawa and Washington . Trade is the most important component of U.S.- Canada relations. Each country is the other’s biggest trading customer. Eighty-four percent of Canada’s exports go the United States and Canada buys more than 70 percent of its imports from its neighbor. So it was no surprise that when President Bush visited Canada, trade issues - and especially contentious trade issues - were high on the agenda in discussions with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Charles Doran is Director of Canadian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. He says one major disagreement between the two countries deals with Washington’s tariffs on the import of Canadian softwood lumber , such as pine. “There is a huge amount of trade in lumber between Canada and the United States. Canadians sell a large amount, billions of dollars, and the argument has been on the part of a small group of producers in the United States that Canada has subsidized this. Now the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and the World Trade Organization, in dispute resolution panels, have denied that there is unfair subsidy. But in fact, every President for some time has been unable to unravel the legal challenges and so on, to get rid of that issue,” he says. Following the Bush-Martin meeting, the

softwood lumber issue remains unresolved . Professor Doran says another problem stems from the US action to ban beef imports from Canada because of mad cow disease. “There was one cow found in Alberta with this disease, but the consequence of that has been enormous in the sense that trade for beef, for the United States and Canada has been affected and third markets like Japan and Europe. They are trying to get around this problem. They are trying to establish common standards, but it’s hard to believe, it’s almost hard to imagine how one cow could cause that much catastrophe to this industry in North America,” he says. Canadian statistics indicate that the 18-month ban has cost the Canadian beef industry more than $4 billion in lost revenues. That issue, too, still remains to be solved following the Bush-Martin summit. Tied to those two trade issues, is the question of security along the Canadian-American border - at

nearly 9,000 kilometers the world’s longest undefended frontier. Both countries have stepped up cooperation in the security field, especially after the terrorist

attacks of September 11, 2001. Kim Nossel, Director of Political Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, says Americans and Canadians are approaching the border security issue from different angles. “From the American perspective, there is the concern about the porousness of that long, undefended border and the ease with which one could in fact get across the border. From a Canadian perspective, the major concern is an absolute fear that there will be a terrorist incident in the United States that will openly and manifestly have come from Canada, that will lead to, essentially, a closing of the border. And of course that border and the openness of that border is absolutely crucial for Canadian wealth.” Experts say Ottawa and Washington have to find a delicate balance between the free flow of commerce and legitimate security concerns. Gill Troy is a U.S.-Canada expert at McGill University in Montreal. He says despite various disagreements between the two countries, one overriding issue must be kept in mind. “Even if there is an agreement to disagree, even if the United States says: ‘look, we can’t do this because of internal constituency pressures or external trade pressures,’ the awareness that nevertheless, while we might part on some issues, we are still fundamentally friends , we are still fundamentally linked in so many ways - economically , ideologically , intellectually , culturally, socially - is important,” he says. Experts agree that President

Bush’s trip to Canada was an attempt to improve relations between the two countries - relations that were strained in recent years , during the tenure of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Analysts say based on the recent Bush-Martin meeting, things are looking up .

A2 oil competition da [canada – cyberterror impact defense]

No risk of cyber warClark ’12 (MA candidate – Intelligence Studies @ American Military University, senior analyst – Chenega Federal Systems, 4/28/’12(Paul, “The Risk of Disruption or Destruction of Critical U.S. Infrastructure by an Offensive Cyber Attack,” American Military University)

The Department of Homeland Security worries that our critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) may be exposed, both directly and

indirectly, to multiple threats because of CIKR reliance on the global cyber infrastructure, an infrastructure that is under routine cyberattack by a “spectrum of malicious actors” (National Infrastructure Protection Plan 2009). CIKR in the extremely large and complex U.S. economy spans multiple sectors including agricultural, finance and banking, dams and water resources, public health and emergency services, military and defense, transportation and

shipping, and energy (National Infrastructure Protection Plan 2009). The disruption and destruction of public and private infrastructure is part of warfare, without this infrastructure conflict cannot be sustained (Geers 2011). Cyber-attacks are desirable because they are considered to be a relatively “low cost and long range” weapon (Lewis 2010), but prior to the creation of Stuxnet, the first cyber-weapon, the ability to disrupt and destroy critical infrastructure through cyber-attack was theoretical. The movement of an offensive cyber-weapon from conceptual to actual has forced the United States to question whether offensive cyber-attacks are a significant threat that are able to disrupt or destroy CIKR to the level that national security is seriously degraded. It is important to understand the risk posed to national security by cyber-attacks to ensure that government responses are appropriate to the threat and balance security with privacy and civil liberty concerns. The risk posed to CIKR from cyber-attack can be evaluated by measuring the threat from cyber-attack against the vulnerability of a CIKR target and the consequences of CIKR disruption. As the only known cyber-weapon, Stuxnet has been thoroughly analyzed and used as a model for predicting future cyber-weapons. The U.S. electrical grid , a key component in the CIKR

energy sector, is a target that has been analyzed for vulnerabilities and the consequences of disruption predicted – the electrical grid has been used in multiple attack scenarios including a classified scenario provided to the U.S. Congress in 2012 (Rohde 2012). Stuxnet will serve as the weapon and the U.S.

electrical grid will serve as the target in this risk analysis that concludes that there is a low risk of disruption or destruction of critical infrastructure from a an offensive cyber-weapon because of the complexity of the attack path, the limited capability of non-state adversaries to develop cyber-weapons, and the existence of multiple methods of mitigating the cyber-attacks. To evaluate the threat posed by a Stuxnet-like cyber-weapon, the complexity of the weapon, the available attack vectors for the weapon, and the resilience of the weapon must be understood. The complexity – how difficult and expensive it was to create the weapon – identifies the relative cost and availability of the weapon; inexpensive and simple to build will be more prevalent than expensive and difficult to build. Attack vectors are the available methods of attack; the larger the number, the more severe the threat. For example, attack vectors for a cyberweapon may be email attachments, peer-to-peer applications, websites, and infected USB devices or compact discs. Finally, the resilience of the weapon determines its availability and affects its usefulness. A useful weapon is one that is resistant to disruption (resilient) and is therefore available and reliable. These concepts are seen in the AK-47 assault rifle – a simple, inexpensive, reliable and effective weapon – and carry over to information technology

structures (Weitz 2012). The evaluation of Stuxnet identified malware that is “unusually complex and large ” and required code written in multiple languages (Chen 2010) in order to complete a variety of specific functions contained in a “vast array” of components – it is one of the most complex threats ever analyzed by Symantec (Falliere, Murchu and Chien 2011). To be successful, Stuxnet required a high level of technical knowledge across multiple disciplines, a laboratory with the target equipment configured for testing, and a foreign intelligence capability to collect information on the target network and attack vectors (Kerr, Rollins and Theohary 2010). The malware also needed careful monitoring and maintenance because it could be easily disrupted; as a result Stuxnet was developed with a high degree of configurability

and was upgraded multiple times in less than one year (Falliere, Murchu and Chien 2011). Once introduced into the network, the cyber-weapon

then had to utilize four known vulnerabilities and four unknown vulnerabilities, known as zero-day exploits, in order to install itself and propagate across the target network (Falliere, Murchu and Chien 2011). Zero-day exploits are incredibly difficult to find and fewer than twelve out of the 12,000,000 pieces of malware discovered each year utilize zero-day exploits and this rarity makes them valuable, zero-days can fetch $50,000 to $500,000 each on the black market (Zetter 2011). The use of four rare exploits in a single piece of malware is “unprecedented” (Chen 2010). Along with the use of four unpublished exploits, Stuxnet also used the “first ever” programmable logic controller

rootkit, a Windows rootkit, antivirus evasion techniques, intricate process injection routines, and other complex interfaces (Falliere, Murchu and Chien

2011) all wrapped up in “layers of encryption like Russian nesting dolls” (Zetter 2011) – including custom encryption algorithms (Karnouskos 2011). As

the malware spread across the now-infected network it had to utilize additional vulnerabilities in proprietary Siemens industrial control software (ICS) and hardware used to control the equipment it was designed to sabotage. Some of these ICS vulnerabilities were published but some were unknown and required such a high degree of inside knowledge that there was speculation that a Siemens employee had been involved in the malware design (Kerr, Rollins and Theohary 2010). The unprecedented technical complexity of the Stuxnet cyber-weapon, along with the

extensive technical and financial resources and foreign intelligence capabilities required for its development and deployment, indicates that the malware was likely developed by a nation-state (Kerr, Rollins and Theohary 2010). Stuxnet had very limited attack vectors. When a computer system is connected to the public Internet a host of attack vectors are available to the cyber-attacker (Institute for Security Technology Studies 2002). Web browser and browser plug-in vulnerabilities, cross-site scripting attacks, compromised email attachments, peer-to-peer applications, operating system and other application vulnerabilities are all vectors for the introduction of malware into an Internetconnected computer system. Networks that are not connected to the public internet are “air gapped ,” a technical colloquialism to identify a physical separation between networks. Physical separation from the public Internet is a common safeguard for sensitive networks including classified U.S. government networks. If the target network is air gapped, infection can only occur through physical means – an infected disk or USB device that must be physically introduced into a possibly access controlled environment and connected to the air gapped network. The first step of the Stuxnet cyber-attack was to initially infect the target networks, a difficult task given the probable disconnected and well secured nature of the Iranian nuclear facilities. Stuxnet was introduced via a USB device to the target network, a method that suggests that the attackers were familiar with the configuration of the network and knew it was not connected to the public Internet (Chen 2010). This assessment is supported by two rare features in Stuxnet – having all necessary functionality for industrial sabotage fully embedded in the malware executable along with

the ability to self-propagate and upgrade through a peer-to-peer method (Falliere, Murchu and Chien 2011). Developing an understanding of the target network configuration was a significant and daunting task based on Symantec’s assessment that Stuxnet repeatedly targeted a total of five different organizations over nearly one year (Falliere, Murchu and Chien 2011) with physical introduction via USB drive being the only available attack vector. The final factor in assessing the threat of a cyber-weapon is the resilience of the weapon. There are two primary factors that make Stuxnet non-resilient: the complexity of the weapon and the complexity of the target. Stuxnet was highly customized for sabotaging specific industrial systems (Karnouskos 2011) and needed a large number of very complex components and routines in order to increase its chance of success (Falliere, Murchu and Chien 2011). The malware required eight vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system to succeed and therefore would have failed if those vulnerabilities had been properly patched; four of the eight vulnerabilities were known to Microsoft and subject to elimination (Falliere, Murchu and Chien 2011). Stuxnet also required that two drivers be installed and required two stolen security certificates for installation (Falliere, Murchu and Chien 2011); driver installation would have failed if the stolen certificates had been revoked and marked as invalid. Finally, the configuration of systems is ever-changing as components are upgraded or replaced. There is no guarantee that the network that was mapped for vulnerabilities had not changed in the months, or years, it took to craft Stuxnet and successfully infect the target network. Had specific components of the target hardware changed – the targeted Siemens software or programmable logic controller – the attack would have failed. Threats are less of a threat when identified; this is why zero-day exploits are so valuable. Stuxnet went to great lengths to hide its existence from the target and utilized multiple rootkits, data manipulation routines, and virus avoidance techniques to stay undetected. The malware’s actions occurred only in memory to avoid leaving traces on disk, it masked its activities by running under legal programs, employed layers of encryption and code obfuscation, and uninstalled itself after a set period of time, all efforts to avoid detection because its authors knew that detection meant failure. As a result of the

complexity of the malware, the changeable nature of the target network, and the chance of discovery, Stuxnet is not a resilient system. It is a fragile weapon that required an investment of time and money to constantly monitor, reconfigure, test and deploy over the course of a year . There is concern, with Stuxnet developed and available publicly, that the world is on the brink of a storm of highly sophisticated Stuxnet-derived cyber-weapons which can be used by hackers, organized criminals and terrorists (Chen 2010). As former counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke describes it, there is concern that the technical brilliance of the United States “has created millions of potential monsters all over the world” (Rosenbaum 2012). Hyperbole aside, technical knowledge spreads. The techniques behind cyber-attacks are “constantly evolving and making use of lessons learned over time”

(Institute for Security Technology Studies 2002) and the publication of the Stuxnet code may make it easier to copy the weapon (Kerr, Rollins and

Theohary 2010). However, this is something of a zero-sum game because know ledge works both ways and cyber-security techniques are also evolving, and “understanding attack techniques more clearly is the first step toward increasing security” (Institute for Security Technology Studies 2002).

Vulnerabilities are discovered and patched , intrusion detection and malware signatures are expanded and updated, and monitoring and analysis processes and methodologies are expanded and honed. Once the element of surprise is lost, weapons and tactics are less useful, this is the core of the argument that “uniquely surprising” stratagems like Stuxnet are single-use, like Pearl Harbor and the Trojan Horse, the “very success [of these attacks] precludes their repetition” (Mueller 2012). This paradigm has already been seen in the “son of Stuxnet”

malware – named Duqu by its discoverers – that is based on the same modular code platform that created Stuxnet (Ragan 2011). With the techniques used by Stuxnet now known, other variants such as Duqu are being discovered and countered by security researchers (Laboratory of Cryptography and

System Security 2011). It is obvious that the effort required to create, deploy, and maintain Stuxnet and its variants is massive and it is not clear that the rewards are worth the risk and effort . Given the location of initial infection and the number of infected systems in Iran (Falliere,

Murchu and Chien 2011) it is believed that Iranian nuclear facilities were the target of the Stuxnet weapon. A significant amount of money and effort was invested in creating Stuxnet but yet the expected result – assuming that this was an attack that expected to damage production – was minimal at best. Iran claimed that Stuxnet caused only minor damage, probably at the Natanz enrichment facility, the Russian contractor Atomstroyeksport reported that no damage had occurred at the Bushehr facility, and an unidentified “senior diplomat” suggested that Iran was forced to shut down its centrifuge facility “for a few days” (Kerr, Rollins and Theohary 2010). Even the most optimistic estimates believe that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was only delayed by months, or perhaps years (Rosenbaum 2012). The actual damage done by Stuxnet is not clear (Kerr, Rollins and Theohary 2010) and the primary damage appears to be to a higher number than average replacement of centrifuges at the Iran enrichment facility (Zetter 2011). Different targets may produce different results. The Iranian nuclear facility was a difficult target with limited attack vectors because of its isolation from the public Internet and restricted access to its facilities. What is the probability of a successful attack against the U.S. electrical grid and what are the potential consequences should this critical infrastructure be disrupted

or destroyed? An attack against the electrical grid is a reasonable threat scenario since power systems are “a high priority target for military and insurgents” and there has been a trend towards utilizing commercial software and integrating utilities into the public Internet that has “increased vulnerability across

the board” (Lewis 2010). Yet the increased vulnerabilities are mitigated by an increased detection and deterrent capability

that has been “honed over many years of practical application” now that power systems are using standard, rather than proprietary and specialized, applications and components (Leita and Dacier 2012). The security of the electrical grid is also enhanced by increased awareness after a smart-grid hacking demonstration in 2009 and the identification of the Stuxnet malware in 2010; as a result the public and private sector are working together in an “unprecedented effort” to establish robust security guidelines and cyber security measures (Gohn and Wheelock 2010).

A2 oil competition da [canada – terrorism impact defense]

No terror threatStephen M. Walt 12, Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University, "'America the brittle?'" September 10, Foreign Policy, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/09/inflating_the_terrorist_threat_again According to yesterday's New York Times, assorted "senior American officials" are upset that adversaries like al Qaeda, the Taliban, or the Somali pirates are

not simply rolling over and dying. Instead, these foes are proving to be "resilient ," "adaptable," and "flexible ." These same U.S. officials are also worried that the United States isn't demonstrating the same grit, as supposedly revealed by high military suicide rates, increased reports of PTSD, etc. According to Times reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, these developments¶ "raise concerns that the United States is losing ground in the New Darwinism of security threats, in which an agile enemy evolves in new ways to blunt America's vast technological prowess with clever homemade bombs and anti-American propaganda that helps supply a steady stream of fighters."¶ Or as Shanker and Schmitt put it (cue the scary music): "Have we become America the brittle?"¶ This sort of pop sociology is not very illuminating , especially when there's no evidence presented to support the various officials' gloomy pronouncements . In fact,

the glass looks more than half-full. Let's start by remembering that the Somali pirates and al Qaeda have been doing pretty badly of late . Piracy in the Gulf of Aden is down sharply, Osama bin Laden is dead, and his movement's popularity is lower than ever. Whatever silly dreams he might have had about restoring the caliphate have proven to be just hollow fantasies. And as John Mueller and Mark Stewart showed in an article I linked to a few weeks ago, the actual record of post-9/11 plots against the United States suggests that these supposedly "agile" and "resilient" conspirators are mostly bumbling incompetents. In fact, Lehman Bros. might be the only major world organization that had a worse decade than al Qaeda did.

A2 oil competition da [cana da – trade leadership impact defense]

Trade is strong and resilientIkenson, 9 [Daniel, associate director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, “ A Protectionism Fling: Why Tariff Hikes and Other Trade Barriers Will Be Short-Lived,” March 12, 2009, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10651]

Although some governments will dabble in some degree of protectionism, the combination of a sturdy rules-based system of trade and the economic self interest in being open to participation in the global economy will limit the risk of a protectionist pandemic . According to recent estimates from the International Food Policy Research Institute, if all WTO members were to raise all of their applied tariffs to the maximum bound rates , the average global rate of duty would double and the value of global trade would decline by 7.7 perce nt over five years.8 That would be a substantial decline relative to the 5.5 percent annual rate of trade growth experienced this decade.9 But, to put that 7.7 percent decline in historical perspective, the value of global trade declined by 66 percent between 19 29 and 19 34 , a period mostly in the wake of Smoot Hawley's passage in 1930.10 So the potential downside today from what Bergsten calls " legal protectionism" is actually not that " massive ," even if all WTO members raised all of their tariffs to the highest permissible rates . If most developing countries raised their tariffs to

their bound rates, there would be an adverse impact on the countries that raise barriers and on their most important trade partners. But most developing countries that have room to backslide (i.e., not China) are not major importers , and thus the impact on global trade flows would not be that significant. OECD

countries and China account for the top twothirds of global import value.11 Backsliding from India, Indonesia, and Argentina (who collectively account

for 2.4 percent of global imports) is not going to be the spark that ignite s a global trade war . Nevertheless, governments are keenly aware of the events that transpired in the 1930s, and have made various pledges to avoid protectionist measures in combating the current economic

situation. In the United States, after President Obama publicly registered his concern that the "Buy American" provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act might be perceived as protectionist or could incite a trade war, Congress agreed to revise the legislation to stipulate that the Buy American provision "be applied in a manner consistent with United States obligations under international agreements." In early February, China's vice commerce minister, Jiang Zengwei, announced that China would not include "Buy China" provisions in its own $586 billion stimulus bill.12 But even more promising than pledges to avoid trade provocations are actions taken to reduce existing trade barriers . In an effort to "reduce business operating costs, attract and retain foreign investment, raise business productivity, and provide consumers a greater variety and better quality of goods and services at competitive prices," the Mexican government initiated a plan in January to unilaterally reduce tariffs on about 70 percent of the items on its tariff schedule. Those 8,000 items, comprising 20 different industrial sectors, accounted for about half of all Mexican import value in 2007. When the final phase of the plan is implemented on January 1, 2013, the average industrial tariff rate in Mexico will have fallen from 10.4 percent to 4.3 percent.13v And Mexico is not alone. In February, the Brazilian government suspended tariffs entirely on some capital goods imports and reduced to 2 percent duties on a wide variety of machinery and other capital equipment, and on communications and information technology products.14 That decision came on the heels of late-January decision in Brazil to scrap plans for an import licensing program that would have affected 60 percent of the county's imports.15 Meanwhile, on February 27, a new free trade agreement was signed between Australia, New Zealand, and the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian

Nations to reduce and ultimately eliminate tariffs on 96 percent of all goods by 2020. While the media and members of the trade policy community fixate on how various protectionist measures around the world might foreshadow a plunge into the abyss, there is plenty of evidence that governments remain interested in removing barriers to trade . Despite the occasional temptation to indulge discredited policies, there is a growing body of institutional knowledge that when people are free to engage in commerce with one another as they choose, regardless of the nationality or location of the other parties, they can leverage that freedom to accomplish economic outcomes far more impressive than when governments attempt to limit choices through policy constraints.

A2 politics

The plan is key to the GOP

GRANT 2013 - David Grant, staff writer, 1/20/13, “Obama’s second term: Can he work with Congress? (+video)”, Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/0120/Obama-s-second-term-Can-he-work-with-Congress-video, acc. 1/25/13

And the president could perhaps turn down the bellicosity on the Hill by working with some of his loudest critics (though risking the ire of

environmentalists in his political base) in one area that the deeply-red right and the president could agree: energy policy. “We were encouraged by President Obama’s 2012 campaign comments supporting an all-of-the-above agenda on energy, and his statements outlining support for oil and natural gas,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s powerful trade association, in his annual State of American Energy address in Washington earlier this month. But Republicans rage about a disconnect between what the president and members of his administration say they favor

and what Republicans say is foot-dragging in building the Keystone XL pipeline, exporting natural gas, or freeing up more offshore areas for energy exploration. If the president were to get behind any of these initiatives he’d likely have plenty of GOP support – but that remains a large “if.”

They’re key to the agenda

GRANT 2013 - David Grant, staff writer, 1/20/13, “Obama’s second term: Can he work with Congress? (+video)”, Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/0120/Obama-s-second-term-Can-he-work-with-Congress-video, acc. 1/25/13

But if the president is going to pass legislative fixes for weighty issues like immigration reform, changes to the nation’s gun laws, and the nation’s troubled fiscal situation, he’s going to need to work with the body he spent much of his reelection campaign railing against.

Plan’s a win for oil --- those lobbies control the agenda

FROOMKIN 2011 - Dan Froomkin, contributing editor of Nieman Reports, “How the Oil Lobby Greases Washington’s Wheels,” HUFFINGTON POST, 4-6-11, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/06/how-the-oil-lobby-greases_n_845720.html, accessed 6-2-12

With so much public opposition, why do subsidies remain? You might as well ask why there is no carbon tax, or why there was no significant reform legislation passed after the BP oil spill. The answer is that one of the many things the industry can do with its fat pocketbook is hire a veritable army of sharp lobbyists and back them up with big wads of cash in the form of campaign donations and spending. The end result is that the industry has a remarkable ability to get its way on Capitol Hill . According to the Center for Responsive Politics' website, the oil and gas industry has spent more than $1 billion on lobbying since 1998, including a jaw-dropping $147 million just last year. For comparison's sake, $147 million is about equivalent to the total budget of 100 congressional offices. That's more than the $103 million spent in 2010 by the financial service industry, another potent lobbying force -- but considerably less than the $240 million spent by the pharmaceutical industry. Among major industries, Opensecrets.org ranked Big Oil fifth in terms of lobbying dollars spent, behind only Big Pharma, electric utilities, business associations and insurance. The oil and gas industry used its $147 million to employ 788 individual lobbyists in 2010 -- some 500 (or almost two thirds) of whom, according to Opensecrets.org, are former federal employees who came through the revolving door particularly well versed in the ways of government. All told, that's well more than one oil and gas lobbyist per member of Congress out there on the Hill arming allies with talking points and briefing books, spinning the undecided and pressuring the opposition .

A2 china competition

we’ll cooperate over oil – no motive for competition

YERGIN ’9 - is chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy research and consulting firm; received a Pulitzer Prize (Yergin, Daniel. “It's Still the One”. October, 2009. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/17/its_still_the_one?page=0,1)

But the global petroleum industry is not a go-it-alone business . Because of the risk and costs of large-scale development, companies tend to work in consortia with other companies . Oil-exporting countries seek to diversify the countries and companies they work with.

Inevitably, any country in China's position -- whose demand had grown from 2.5 million barrels per day to 8 million in a decade and a half -- would be worrying

about supplies. Such an increase, however, is not a forecast of inevitable strife ; it is a message about economic growth and rising standards of living. It would be much more worrying if , in the face of rising demand, Chinese companies were not investing in production both inside China (the source of half of its supply) and outside its borders . There are potential flash points in this new world of oil. But they will not come from standard commercial competition . Rather, they arise when oil (along with natural gas) gets caught up in larger foreign-policy issues -- most notably

today, the potentially explosive crisis over the nuclear ambitions of oil- and gas-rich Iran. Yet, despite all the talk of an "oil clash" scenario, there seems to be less overall concern than a few years ago and much more discussion about "energy dialogue ." The Chinese themselves appear more confident about their increasingly important place in this globalized oil market. Although the risks are still there, the Chinese -- and the Indians right alongside them -- have the same stake as other consumers in an adequately supplied world market that is part of the larger global economy. Disruption of that economy, as the last year has so vividly demonstrated, does not serve their purposes. Why would the Chinese want to get into a confrontation over oil with the U nited States when the U.S. export market is so central to their economic growth and when the two countries are so financially interdependent?

A2 nuclear power da – 2ac

Broader Arctic drilling is inevitableO’Keefe ’12 – CEO at the George C. Marshall Institute(William, “Decision Isn't America's Alone To Make”, 7-23-2012, http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/is-arctic-oil-drilling-ready-f.php)The decision on whether Arctic oil drilling is ready for prime time is not the federal government’s to make. The U nited S tates does not have a monopoly on exploration and production in the Arctic Ocean.¶ Denmark, Canada, Norway, Russia, and the U nited S tates all have economic sovereignty in Arctic waters. The Arctic Ocean’s large resource potential, about 22 percent of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil and natural gas resources based on the US Geological Survey (USGS), ensures that it will be explored. Since the USGS believes that gas is the predominant resource there the rate of exploration is likely to be slow and deliberate because of the abundance of on-shore gas production and its current affordable price. But, in the end, the US can either be a leader or laggard in realizing the economic benefits of exploration.¶ The oil and gas industry has been drilling in hostile environments for decades and in the North Slope of Alaska since the late 1970s. Exploration there as well as in the North Sea and “Iceberg Alley” off the coast of Nova Scotia has provided the experience, knowledge, and technology for drilling in the Arctic Ocean. ¶ Companies like Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobil, just to name a few, are engineering technology companies. They have the talent, expertise, and the commitment to operating integrity and excellence to meet the challenges of the Arctic Ocean . Of course, much of the attention being given to the Arctic Ocean is a result of the government continuing to prohibit exploration in Alaska’s coastal plain, which might hold more oil and gas than Prudhoe Bay where over 11 billion barrels have been produced safely. ¶ As we have seen over the past few years, domestic oil and gas development brings about important economic benefits. While the overall economy has been struggling to create jobs, the oil and gas industry has been creating them, 150,000 last year according to the energy consulting firm CERA. Those jobs and the investments that make them possible produce federal and state tax benefits. And, as has been said over and over, a barrel of oil produced here is a barrel that is not imported from unstable regions of the world.¶ It should be remembered that the oil industry has an excellent record in offshore exploration and production. Thousands of offshore wells, including deep-water ones, have been safely drilled around the world. From 1969 to 2010 when the Deepwater Horizon accident occurred, there were no major accidents. That is an impressive record. Environmental opposition to any energy development in Alaska, the Deep Horizon accident, and the general hostility of the Obama Administration to oil and gas development are factors that ensure that exploration will be done carefully and with an abundance of caution. Shell has no doubt demonstrated more than reasonable prudence in its engineering and operating plans to reduce risks as much as practical.¶ We do not live in a risk free world and no one or company can guarantee otherwise. Our advances in technology and innovation are the result of risk taking and our standard of living is better because of it. The point made at the beginning is worth repeating. Arctic Ocean oil resources will be developed. The only open question is by whom?

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Nuclear power dying nowPennEnergy ’12 (“Nuclear power output declines in US”, 12-12-2012, http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2012/12/nuclear-power-output-declines-in-us.html)Nuclear power output in the U nited S tates continued to drop as of December 11 , as more reactors went offline or lowered productivity, according to Bloomberg. Production is 2.4 percent lower than at this time last year , according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission data, and 11 of the country's 104 reactors were not operating.

Oil and nuclear power do not compete with each other—irrelevant marketsToph and Rogner ‘6(Ferenc L. Toth*, Hans-Holger Rogner Planning and Economic Studies Section, Department of Nuclear Energy, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Oil and nuclear power: Past, present, and future, Energy Economics, 2006)The current relation ship between nuclear power and oil has become distinctly different than it was a few decades ago . At the onset of the 21st century, nuclear and oil for electricity generation are target ing different electricity market segments with little overlap in the longer run. Oil for electricity generation in most industrialized countries serves, where not barred for environmental reasons, more the function of the disposal of residual oil for which no other applications can be found. However, advanced refineries converting larger portions of the barrel into premium products and stringent environmental regulation F.L. Toth, H.-H. Rogner / Energy Economics 28 (2006) 1–25 5constrain the use of residual oil for power generation. Other uses of oil products include peak supply, back-up fuel, and dispersed non-grid generation. These markets have been relative captive for oil but this may change in the future with the advent of fuel cells. Since nuclear power has no role to play in these captive markets, growth prospects for oil are unaffected by a nuclear presence in the electricity generating market.

A2 nuclear power da – 1ar no tradeoff

Nuclear power does not compete with oil Toth and Rogner, ‘6 (Ferenc (Senior Energy Economist in the IAEA's Planning and Economic Studies Section) and Hans-Holger (Section Head, Planning and Economic Studies Section at the IAEA), “Oil and nuclear power: Past, present, and future”, Energy Economics 28, 2006, pg. 22)

While the past expansion of nuclear energy occurred to the detriment of oil in the power sector, this is no longer the case today and highly unlikely to reoccur in the future . The respective market structures in which nuclear and oil operate now display little overlap and an expansion of nuclear power would not impinge on oil sales to power generation. Nuclear supplies base load to large grid-integrated markets where oil provides some peak supply, back-up capacity, small-scale and non-grid applications. Oil’s main markets are the low energy demand intensity rural and remote areas usually with little or no grid integration. In an environmentally unconstrained future, nuclear power competes primarily against coal and possibly natural gas, depending on how closely natural gas prices track oil market prices and whether or not gas infrastructures are in place. However, current trends towards electricity market liberalization relying more on private sector shareholder value maximization create economic barriers to the expansion of present-day nuclear plants because of their high up-front capital costs and long amortization periods. In the absence of public policy support and/or the emergence of innovative reactor designs that lower the costs and further improve operating safety, nuclear power’s market share might indeed follow a downward trajectory. Yet there is some evidence to the contrary. The order of the new Olkiluoto reactor in Finland is based on several studies, each confirming that nuclear generation is the best economic option to satisfy increasing demand for electricity (WNA, 2004).

No tradeoffStyles ’11, Geoffrey Styles, Managing Director of GSW Strategy Group, LLC, an energy and environmental consulting firm, MBA and BS in chemistry, 1-29-11, “Displacing More Oil from Power Generation,” http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/2011/01/displacing-more-oil-from-power.html

Based on Department of Energy data the US generated just 0.9% of our electricity from petroleum and its

products in the last year, with more than a third of that fueled by petroleum coke, a low-value solid byproduct of oil refining. The 43.5 million barrels of petroleum liquids used in power generation in 2009 represented only 0.6% of the 6.9 billion barrels the US consumed that year. When you break that sliver down by location, much

of it is used for either backup generation or on islands or other remote locations. In other words, the remaining potential to displace oil from power generation in the US is very small and not necessarily well-suited to the intermittent renewable energy technologies now in favor. (That should change as electric vehicles enter the fleet by the millions, but that prospect remains some years off, at least.)