Obama: No Offshore Drilling in Bristol Bay.

Some of the 15 oil and gas platforms currently operating in Cook Inlet, Alaska.

On Wednesday, President Obama laid out a plan to strategically expand offshore oil and gas drilling, hoping to strike a balance, he said, between "the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America's natural resources." In theory, the drilling compromise was meant to open the door to bipartisan cooperation on more comprehensive energy and climate legislation. In practice, it means this:

That's why my administration will consider potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic. That's why we'll continue to support development of leased areas off the North Slope of Alaska, while protecting Alaska's Bristol Bay. [Emphasis added]

Predictably, there were unhappy campers on both sides: oil companies were shocked at the implication that they couldn't be trusted to just drill wherever they pleased; environmental groups lamented that the pursuit of more fossil fuels would be not just harmful to the environment, but a distraction from the pursuit of a true alternative energy agenda. But for Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News says, the compromise seems to work, balancing out the state's pro-development temperament with many residents' concern for Bristol Bay.

I've spent the past two summers in Bristol Bay, and for those who don't know, it is an ecological wonderland, home to one of the world's last great salmon runs and a fantastically intact ecosystem. Over the past five years or so, a consortium of fishermen, natives, and environmentalists have been fighting against what they perceive as a pair of bookend threats: the prospect of oil and gas drilling along the Aleutian Peninsula west of the Bay; and the development of the proposed Pebble Mine at the headwaters of two of the primary salmon spawning rivers. (Might I suggest my piece on the subject, Gold Fish, for further background on Pebble.) Thus, while many local leaders rejoiced, environmental groups like the WWF, which has been fighting to protect Pebble, struggled to balance their happiness at having Bristol Bay (temporarily) protected with their disappointment with the rest of the proposal. 

But perhaps the bigger positive for Bristol Bay is that, in singling it out for protection, President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signaled that they're aware of what's going on there, and that they're watching.