%environment_news_service%
WASHINGTON, DC, August 17, 2020 (ENS) – The Trump administration completed plans Monday to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, a move that will permit natural resource exploitation in the core of one of America’s most treasured wild areas. Gray wolves, musk oxen, caribou, and imperiled polar bears roam the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 19.6 million acres. Migratory birds fly in from all 50 states and six continents. These lands are vital to the culture and survival of Indigenous people, who have relied on the area for thousands of years. Regardless, U. S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt today signed a Record of Decision approving the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, in Alaska. The question of whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been an ongoing political controversy in the United States since 1977. As of 2017, Republicans had attempted to allow drilling in ANWR almost 50 times, finally being successful with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The ANWR leasing program is required by law in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 22,2017. The decision determines where and under what terms and conditions leasing will occur in the 1.56 million-acre Coastal Plain within the 19.3 million-acre ANWR. “Congress directed us to hold lease sales in the ANWR Coastal Plain, and we have taken a significant step in meeting our obligations by determining where and under what conditions the oil and gas development program will occur,” said Bernhardt. “Our program meets the legal mandate that Coastal Plain leaseholders get the necessary rights-of-way, easements and land areas for production and support facilities they need to find and develop these important Arctic oil and gas resources,” Bernhardt said. Under the 2017 law, the federal government must conduct two lease sales of 400,000 acres each by December 2024. Conservation groups and some native tribes say they will fight the Trump drilling plan in court. The Gwich’in, a First Nations people of Canada and an Alaska Native people, generations of whom have relied upon the caribou migration across ANWR for food and clothing, plans to sue Trump officials over this decision. About 9,000 Gwich’in live in 15 small communities in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory of Canada, and in northern Alaska.
