Environmental Groups Seek to Shut Down Trans-Alaska Pipeline

‘If the pipeline gets closed... enormous quantities of oil, gas, and coal, basically get cut off,’ says an energy expert.

An oil transit pipeline runs across the tundra to a flow station at the Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska's North Slope, in this file photo. Al Grillo, File/AP Photo

Environmental activists have filed a legal petition with the federal government in hopes of shutting down the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which at its peak transported 25 percent of the oil produced in America.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline “is approaching the end of its useful life due to mounting climate change-driven damages to both the aging pipeline infrastructure and the entire Arctic ecosystem, as well as the imperative for the United States to rapidly transition away from fossil fuel-based energy,” the petition states.