Trump Reopens Oil Drilling Alaska Arctic Wildlife Refuge

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is opening the entire coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, reversing a Biden administration decision that put the pristine wilderness area off limits.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Thursday the agency was opening the 1.56 million acre of tundra on the state’s North Slope and holding a lease sale this winter in the nearby National Petroleum Reserve. It’s the latest move President Donald Trump’s administration to boost domestic fossil fuel production.

“This land should and will be supporting responsible oil and gas leasing,” Burgum said during an event at the Interior Department’s headquarters in Washington Thursday.

The refuge’s coastal plain is estimated to hold billions of barrels of crude. But many oil companies have been reluctant to target the area, given the high costs. Environmentalists and native Alaskans argue oil development in the region risks imperiling arctic foxes, polar bears and caribou.



Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-reopens-alaska-arctic-coastal-192734093.html

[VeryProgressive]

1. Drilling Not Happening

It's a meaningless gesture, as oil companies are not going to drill there. Trump is having the Saudi's increase production of oil which drives down the price of gas but will really hurt domestic oil production. It's short-sighted stupidity. We might enjoy lower gas prices for a short time but it will come back on us later.

[mahina]

4. Thank you for posting

[somsai]

2. No drilling is allowed on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

and no drilling will ever occur on it. To drill on ANWR congress would need to change the designation such that it's no longer a refuge.

What they want to do, or get permission to do, just in case, is drill on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and you can probably tell by the name that the place was intended to be for oil. Not to say it isn't gorgeous untouched small W wilderness, I'm sure it is though I've never been there.

I have been to the 1.56 million acres under discussion though. It's called area 1002. I spent the winter of 89/90 walking up and down beside the Canning River which forms the western boundary of area 1002. There is one small village in area 1002 and they dream of finally someone drilling there, they are Inuit, not Indian, and they make all their revenue off oil.

Area 1002 was a carve out to allow oil extraction. It's gorgeous of course but I've never seen a part of arctic Alaska that wasn't ungodly gorgeous.

Despite permitting I doubt either place will ever be developed.

[mahina]

3. Thank you for posting, this really comforted my breaking heart

[FBaggins]

5. Didn't Congress make that change in 2017?

I remember one of President Biden's first acts was to pause leasing in the refuge. There wouldn't be a need to do that if it weren't already open to the activity

[somsai]

8. He paused drilling on area 1002, on a map it looks like a sliver of land along the arctic ocean

but at over a million acres it's just small compared to the refuge.

Refuges are sacronsect. Often funded by hunters via the duck stamp (but not this one) in many ways they have the most restrictive limits on what can be done on them. The purpose of refuges beyond all else is for the wildlife, not recreation, not minerals, etc.

Most of the year it's hard to tell if you are on the river, on the ice, or on land. It's flat and treeless. Next to the river you can see willow shoots poking up through the snow.

[jgmiller]

6. Oil companies love collecting leases and then sitting on them

They do it because it's cheap and it stops their competitors from drilling or they can use them to trade for leases they actually want to drill on. They are also doing it to future proof in case there is a shortage from somewhere and the price goes through the roof they already have the leases in place.

[Lemon Lyman]

7. :-(

Oh yeah? Well, HRC gave a speech to a company, & Kamala was a cop.

I loathe the nonvoters & both siders that have us here.