The Biden administration said Friday it will limit leasing of new oil and gas on 13 million acres of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm.
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The decision — part of an ongoing, yearslong battle over whether and how to develop the state’s vast oil deposits — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Biden administration prepared to close the controversial Willow to approve oil project.
Willow’s approval drew ire from environmentalists, who said the big oil project violated Biden’s pledge to fight the climate crisis. Friday’s decision also confirms an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half of the reserve to oil and gas leasing.
The rules announced Friday would place restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in areas designated as special for their wildlife, livelihoods or other values and call for the Bureau of Land Management to regularly evaluate whether new special areas should whether protection in those areas should be strengthened. . The agency cited rapidly changing conditions in the Arctic due to the climate crisis, including melting permafrost and changes to plant life and wildlife corridors, as the reason.
Environmentalists were pleased. “This huge, wild place can stay wild,” said Ellen Montgomery of Environment America Research & Policy Center.
Jeremy Lieb, an attorney at Earthjustice, said the government has taken an important step to protect the climate with the latest decision. Earthjustice is currently involved in a lawsuit before a federal appeals court seeking to overturn the approval of the Willow project. A decision in that case is pending.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration also finalized a new public land management rule aimed at putting conservation on par with oil drilling, grazing and other extractive industries on vast government-owned properties.
A group of Republican lawmakers, led by Alaska’s junior senator, Republican Dan Sullivan, commented ahead of Friday’s announcements on drilling restrictions in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve before it was publicly announced. Sullivan called it an “illegal” attack on the state’s economic lifeline and predicted lawsuits.
“It’s more than a one-two punch for Alaska, because when you take away access to our resources, when you say you can’t drill, you can’t produce, you can’t explore, you can’t move it — this is the energy insecurity that we have.” what we’re talking about,” said Alaska’s senior senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski.
The decision of the Ministry of Interior does not change the terms of existing leases in the reserve and does not affect currently permitted activities, including the Willow project.
The Biden administration on Friday also recommended the denial of a state-owned company’s application regarding a proposed 338-kilometer road in the northwestern part of the state to allow the mining of critical mineral deposits including copper, cobalt, zinc and silver . and gold. However, there are no mining proposals or current mines in the area, and the proposed financing model for the Ambler Road project is speculative, the Department of the Interior said in a statement.
Alaska’s political leaders have long accused the Biden administration of hurting the state with decisions that limit development of oil and gas, minerals and timber.
“Joe Biden is okay with our adversaries producing energy and dominating the world’s crucial minerals while cutting off ours in America, as long as the far-left radicals he believes are key to his reelection are satisfied,” Sullivan said Thursday at a Capitol news conference with 10 other Republican senators.
Biden defended his decision on the oil reserve.
Alaska’s “majestic and rugged lands and waters are among the most remarkable and healthy landscapes in the world,” are critically important to Alaska Native communities and “demand our protection,” he said in a statement.
Nagruk Harcharek, president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a group that includes leaders from much of Alaska’s North Slope region, has been critical of the administration’s approach. The group’s board of directors previously passed a resolution opposing the government’s plans for the reserve.
The petroleum reserve – about 100 miles (161 km) west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – is home to caribou and polar bears and provides habitat for millions of migratory birds. It was set aside about a century ago as an emergency oil source for the U.S. Navy, but has been under the supervision of the Department of the Interior since the 1970s. There has been a long-standing debate about where development should take place.
Most of the existing leases in the Petroleum Reserve are clustered in an area deemed to have high development potential by the Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Department of the Interior. Development potential in other parts of the reserve is lower, the agency said.
The Associated Press contributed report
