"Newly leaked Interior Department documents raise questions about the environmental review of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain.
The documents show that federal scientists drafted 18 memos detailing the environmental "unknowns" of drilling in the Arctic refuge, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which recently obtained the documents and published them today.
PEER charged that those documents have been excluded from public view and not released in accordance with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by advocacy groups. The advocacy group has petitioned the Interior Office of Inspector General to review the matter.
But top Interior Department officials, including Assistant Secretary Joe Balash and career employee and Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Alaska Regional Director Greg Siekaniec, fiercely defended the agency's process and said PEER's claims were untrue."
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