The US Department of the Interior held its first lease sale of President Donald Trump’s second term in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Department sold off tracts of land for possible drilling in an area that can be used for the oil and gas industry.
The ANWR, the remote refuge near the United States-Canada border, sits more than 600 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, the Last Frontier’s largest city, with nearly 300,000 people — about 40% of the state’s population. The ANWR is widely considered one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, with undisturbed ecosystems and habitats of caribou, polar bears, and hundreds of species of birds stretching nearly 20 million acres. There are no established roads, trails, or facilities of any type within the refuge, and only two permanent villages whose native communities have survived off the land for thousands of years.
Environmentalists, climate activists, and some native groups have, for years, sought to stop fossil fuel development in the area, fearing harm to surrounding wildlife and ecosystems. However, residents of the sole village in the northernmost part of the refuge are welcoming possible drilling projects with open arms to support their own economic growth.
On June 5, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management held an oil and gas lease sale bid opening for tracts of land in the Coastal Plain of the wildlife refuge, also known as the 1002 area. The area stretches across 1.56 million acres, and nearly 679,000 acres were to be made available.
The Trump administration has looked to Alaska as an avenue to achieve the president’s energy dominance and trade agendas, increasing production of oil and gas as well as exports of those petroleum products to Asian allies. And over the last year and a half, the administration has used every tool available to expand fossil fuel production in the state.
Read the full story in the Washington Examiner.
