SHELL OIL'S INVASION OF SEATTLE

In late 2012 Shell Oil’s Kulluk drilling rig ran aground near Alaska’s Kodiak Island, putting an end, it seemed, to Shell's ambitious plans to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean. But now Shell plans to return to the precarious Arctic seas this summer for another try at tapping the oil reserves.

On May 14, Shell Oil’s titanic drilling rig made its way into the Port of Seattle, where it will undergo repairs before heading north to drill in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s north coast this summer. After local company Foss Maritime inked a secretive lease with the Port to repair two of Shell’s skyscraper-sized oil drilling rigs, the region has been embroiled in a raging controversy over the wisdom of allowing the second largest company in the world to use Seattle as a staging ground for Arctic oil drilling.

On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with Eric de Place, policy director for Sightline Institute in Seattle and Peter Goldman with the Washington Forest Law Center, about Shell's invasion of Seattle and the ferocious opposition it is triggering.