by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News November 7, 2024
On Wednesday, just hours after Donald Trump became president-elect, the Biden administration moved to minimize oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In this undated file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an airplane flies over the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska.Under Trump’s signature 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the federal government was required to hold two auctions for the rights to drill in the refuge by the end of 2024.
The first lease sale was held in the waning days of the first Trump administration.
Team Biden suspended the leases in 2023.
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Trump told Senate Republicans in June that he would restore the leases.
The Biden team now says it will hold another auction, as mandated by law, but it will do so on the smallest amount of land possible under the law — 400,000 acres.
According to a supplemental environmental impact statement from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, oil development in the refuge would be restricted much more than under the first Trump administration.
The Alaska Beacon reports that “at least 400,000 acres in the refuge’s coastal plain would be available for oil and gas leasing, but only in areas deemed to have high potential for holding hydrocarbons and only under some new environmental restrictions to protect wildlife and other resources.”
Final approval of the plan for the new leases will occur in no fewer than 30 days.
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Hours after Trump victory, Team Biden moved to limit drilling in Arctic wildlife refuge added by Editor Two on November 7, 2024
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