The Trump administration is opening up the entire coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, reversing a Biden administration decision that kept the pristine wilderness area off-limits.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Thursday that the agency is opening up the 1.56 million acres of tundra in Alaska's North Slope and offering leases there this winter in the adjacent National Petroleum Reserve. It is the latest move by the administration to boost domestic production of fossil fuels.
This ground must and will be supporting sound oil and gas leasing," Burgum said at a gathering in the Interior Department's headquarters in Washington Thursday.
The refuge's plain of the coast is estimated to hold billions of crude barrels. Most oil corporations, however, have avoided developing the zone because of the high costs. Environmentalists and native Alaskans argue development of the oil in the area jeopardizes the survival of arctic foxes, polar bears and caribou.
"Arctic Refuge drilling is irresponsible," Natural Resources Defense Council director Bobby McEnaney stated. "The market has spoken - banks and insurers won't fund it, lease sales failed, and taxpayers get stuck with the bill. Public lands should be for people, wildlife, and a healthy climate-not a fire sale for oil companies."
During the first term of Trump, Congress lifted a 40-year ban on energy production in the sanctuary in 2017 by mandating lease sales.
President Joe Biden canceled leases sold in 2021 and banned exploration in more than half of the nearby National Petroleum Reserve.
No firm opted to bid on two additional lease sales within the district mandated by Congress and held mere days before President Joe Biden's departure. Oil industry officials and Alaska delegates, however, claimed the lease sale's format discouraged bidding from the very beginning.
The Interior Department also said on Thursday that it had reached a land-swap deal to allow the construction of a contentious road across southwestern Alaska's Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.