The Interior Department has given Shell the OK to drill oil exploration wells in two areas of the Beaufort Sea near the Arctic. This could lead to the first drilling in more than a decade in this area off the north coast of Alaska. Chuck Clusen of the Natural Resources Defense Council criticized the decision. Clusen said a drilling blowout could leave oil in the waters off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for decades, killing whales, seals, fish and birds and turning irreplaceable spawning and feeding grounds into an ecological wasteland.