Reluctant Regulators

Before the oil industry invasion, the North Slope of Alaska was pristine wilderness. Now, after "19 oil fields, 4,000 wells, 500 miles of roads, 1,100 miles of pipelines, 22 gravel mines, 450 waste pits, two dozen production plants", and a spill a day, this area emits twice the amount of "smog-producing nitrogen oxide as the entire District of Columbia. But according to the Army Corps of Engineers, this transformation of the Arctic landscape has had no significant impacton the environment."