Biden administration cancels controversial oil leases in Alaska wildlife refuge
The Biden administration on Wednesday confirmed it will cancel seven controversial oil and gas leases in an Alaskan wildlife refuge issued at the very end of the Trump administration
The administration had previously announced in June of 2021 that it would review the leases, which give the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority the rights to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
That refuge is home to caribou herds, wolves and more than 200 species of birds, as well as land considered sacred to the Gwich’in people.
“On day one of this administration, President Biden directed us to look at the oil and gas leases sold in the refuge by the previous administration,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “What we have found in our analysis is that the lease sale itself was seriously flawed and based on a number of fundamental legal deficiencies.”
The administration on Wednesday additionally proposed a rule to protect about 13 million acres in another part of Alaska, known as the National Petroleum Reserve — Alaska (NPR-A). It said in a press release that the proposed rule would provide “maximum protection” for “Special Areas” there, including places known as grizzly and polar bear, caribou and migratory bird habitat.
“The proposal would prohibit any new leasing in 10.6 million acres, which is more than 40 percent of the reserve,” Haaland told reporters on the call.
It previously announced that it would issue the NPR-A proposal the day before it approved the Willow Project, a controversial arctic drilling project for which Alaska’s congressional delegation had heavily lobbied.
The latest actions come nearly six months after the administration approved the Willow Project, which would enable ConocoPhillips to drill for oil in Alaska for 30 years.
Haaland, an opponent of the project while she was in Congress, was conspicuously absent from the approval announcement itself, which bears the name of Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau. In her first public comments following the approval, Haaland called it a “difficult and complex” decision.
The day before the Willow approval, the Biden administration proposed the new protections and said it would block drilling in just under 3 million acres in the Arctic Ocean.
“This is making good on what we said we would do at that time,” White House Climate Advisor John Podesta said on the call Wednesday.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told The Hill earlier Wednesday he had been informed by the Interior Department that the cancellation was coming.
“It is good news. It’s not mission accomplished, but it preserves a path to permanent protection of the Arctic Refuge,” said Huffman, who has introduced a bill to permanently protect the refuge from drilling.
“Ecologically there’s no place like it. The Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge is incredibly important from a biodiversity standpoint,” he said. “We shouldn’t be opening up public lands to any new fossil fuel development let alone a uniquely pristine place like the Arctic Refuge.”
This story is developing and will be updated.
Updated at 3:09 p.m.