ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION AT THE FRONTIER: GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT OF OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING NORTH OF ALASKA.

The Arctic Ocean is one of the last great frontiers for energy production. The prospect of oil development in the region raises deep questions about the threat of a major oil spill, like the one that affected the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. A growing body of legal scholarship has explored the problem of catastrophic risks, in contexts ranging from natural disasters to nuclear power accidents. However, few studies have considered this problem in a frontier environment or focused on government oversight of Arctic offshore oil drilling specifically. This Article fills the literature gap on the Arctic and addresses the more general problem of catastrophic risks in frontier environments. Using the lenses of principal-agent analysis and regulatory theory, this Article shows how the Arctic's profound uncertainties and lack of benchmarking opportunities challenge the efficacy of conventional regulatory models, such as the "risk-based" model that has seen application in other regulatory contexts. Addressing these problems requires greater transparency in government decision making, development of Arctic-specific regulations, and substantially delayed government approval-assuming it is not possible to ban oil drilling in U.S. Arctic waters altogether. The analytical framework and policy recommendations in this Article also offer insights for other risky industries operating at the technological frontier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]