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US holds first oil lease sale for Alaska s Arctic refuge
The U.S. government has held its first-ever oil and gas lease sale for Alaskaâs Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an event critics labeled as a bust with major oil companies staying on the sidelines and a state corporation the main bidder
By BECKY BOHRER Associated Press
January 6, 2021, 10:37 PM
⢠4 min read
Catch up on the developing stories making headlines.The Associated Press
JUNEAU, Alaska The U.S. government held its first-ever oil and gas lease sale Wednesday for Alaska s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an event critics labeled as a bust with major oil companies staying on the sidelines and a state corporation emerging as the main bidder.
ARCTIC OIL DEVELOPMENT
Alaska’s northern frontier and Arctic Ocean waters are teeming with species found in few other places, and many of them are now under threat from the oil industry and its enablers.
The Western Arctic Reserve and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provide critical denning areas for polar bears; support vast caribou herds; and are essential nesting grounds for thousands of bird species, including threatened eiders and yellow-billed loons. The sea ice of the Arctic Ocean is hunting and denning habitat for polar bears and a foraging platform for Pacific walrus and numerous Arctic ice seal species. Under the sea ice, endangered bowhead whales and other whale species live off the biological richness of the Arctic Ocean.
The event, January 6, marks a major moment in a 40-year fight over whether to
develop
the northernmost slice of the refuge s coastal plain, home to migrating caribou, birds and polar bears.
Biden, as well as his pick for Interior Secretary Rep. Deb Haaland oppose drilling in the refuge. The hand-off of drilling rights to the highest bidders could make it more difficult to reverse course.
But despite the high stakes, uncertainty looms over how much oil is actually trapped under the million acres of tundra up for leasing, and how much industry interest there is to go find it. We don t know very much about this area
A polar bear with cubs in Alaska s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2014.
Just two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office, the Trump administration is trying to lock-in oil and gas drilling in Alaska s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with a hastily scheduled and controversial lease sale.
The event, January 6, marks a major moment in a 40-year fight over whether to
develop
the northernmost slice of the refuge s coastal plain, home to migrating caribou, birds and polar bears.
Biden, as well as his pick for Interior Secretary Rep. Deb Haaland oppose drilling in the refuge. The hand-off of drilling rights to the highest bidders could make it more difficult to reverse course.
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Summary
A plan to map underground geology in Alaska s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in a hunt for oil is alarming some scientists, who warn it could damage fragile tundra and threaten endangered polar bears. The federal government is pressing to permit the work, and auction oil-drilling leases, before President Donald Trump leaves office. The work would involve crisscrossing a section of the refuge s coastal plain with huge earth-shaking trucks that generate acoustic waves much like radar. The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2020 issued preliminary reports stating the work posed little risk of harm. But some scientists say the area is still scarred by similar seismic work from the 1980s. Others fear the trucks could kill or disturb bears that overwinter in dens there.View Full Text