The Trump administration said Monday that
it planned to eliminate federal protections across millions of acres of Alaska wilderness,
a move that would allow drilling and mining in some of the last remaining
pristine wilderness in the country.
Interior Secretory Doug Burgum said the
Biden administration had exceeded its authority last year when it banned oil and
gas drilling in more than half of the 9.2 million -hectare area, known as the
National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
The proposed repeal is part of President
Donald Trump’s aggressive agenda to “drill, baby, drill,” which calls for
increased oil and gas extraction on public lands and the repeal of virtually all
climate and environmental protections.
“We’re restoring the balance and putting
our energy future back on track,” Burgum said in a statement.
The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is an
ecologically sensitive expanse of land about 965 kilometers north of Anchorage,
bounded by the Chukchi Sea to the west and the Beaufort Sea to the North. It is
the largest single area of public land in the United States. It covers crucial habitat
for grizzly bears, polar bears, caribou, thousands of migratory birds and other
wildlife.
Created in the early 1900s, the reserves
were originally envisioned as a fuel supply for the Navy in times of emergency.
But in 1976, Congress authorized full commercial development of the federal
land and ordered the government to balance oil drilling with conservation and
wildlife protection.
The announcement came as Burgum traveled to
Alaska, accompanied by Lee Zeldin, the administration of the Environmental
Protection Agency, and Chis Wright, the secretary of the Energy Department. The
three were expected to encourage companies to drill in sensitive areas such as
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to support a liquefied natural gas pipeline
in the state.
Matt Jackson, the Alaska state senior
manager at The Wilderness Society, an environmental group, called the repeal of
environmental protection an outrage.
“The move will accelerate the climate crisis at a time when the ground beneath Alaska communities is literally melting away and subsistence foods are in decline,” Jackson said. (Lisa Friedman)
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