As hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil continue to gush from the blown out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico since April, some Canadian Senators on Parliament Hill are asking whether it's wise for the government to keep reviewing bids for offshore oil exploration licences in parts of the Canadian Arctic where ice makes it more difficult to respond to spills.
Officials with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada are currently reviewing the results of a bidding process, which closed July 6, to potentially award exploration licences for six parcels of land beneath the ocean in the Mackenzie Delta-Beaufort Sea area and the Central Mackenzie Valley, both in the Northwest Territories.
The successful bidder is given exclusive rights to exploration drilling in the defined area for nine years. INAC has called for bids annually in the Mackenzie-Beaufort areas since 1989. This year's process started March 6, more than a month before the exploratory deepwater well blowout off the coast of Louisiana sparked the spill of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil, killing plants and animals along the Gulf Coast in what American President Barack Obama has called the "worst environmental disaster America has ever faced."
Source: The Hill Times
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