Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Trump administration moves to sell drilling rights in Arctic Refuge

The Bureau of Land Management will open up bids for leases to drill oil and gas on the coastal region of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this week.
 File Photo courtesy of USFWS/U.S. Department of the Interior/Facebook

Nov. 16 (UPI) -- The Trump administration moved this week to lock in oil and gas leases at Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by asking companies to stake claims on tracts in the wilderness area that will be sold by the Interior Department.

Interior's "call for nominations" to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, covers 1.6 million acres in the wildlife refuge's coastal plain in northeast Alaska that the Bureau of Land Management estimates to contain between 4.25 billion and 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"This call for nominations brings us one step closer to holding an historic first Coastal Plain lease sale, satisfying the directive of Congress in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and advancing this administration's policy of energy independence," BLM Alaska state director Chad Padgett told the Anchorage Daily News.

The area is home to caribou, polar bears, and more than 280 species of other wildlife.

Conservation groups and Native American groups have sued over the plan, claiming it violates the Endangered Species Act and other environmental policies.

"Trump is trying to lock in climate chaos and the extinction of polar bears and other endangered arctic species on his way out the door. This is unconscionable," Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement on Monday.

"The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge can't be replaced, so we can't let this lame-duck president give it away to Big Oil," Monsell added.

The BLM sale would take place before President-elect Joe Biden has been sworn in, and contradicts Biden's campaign vow to prevent drilling on public lands, spelled out on his website.


Biden's plan calls for banning oil and gas development on public lands and replacing them with renewable development, including "doubling offshore wind" by 2030.

In October, the Trump administration stripped federal protections for Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the largest old-growth forest in the United States, to logging and other business operations.

Trump officials push on with oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden takes office

Low crude price, infrastructure needs and bank-sector reluctance
 raise uncertainty about Big Oil’s rush to drill there

Published: Nov. 16, 2020 By Rachel Koning Beals

A protestor holds a photograph of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR) at a large rally at the capitol in 2005. Refuge oil-drilling approval was stalled then, but is moving ahead under the Trump administration. AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The Trump administration beginning Tuesday wants oil and gas firms to select where they might want to drill for the first time in the U.S.’s largest pristine tract of wilderness, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, before President-elect Joe Biden assumes the White House in January.

The “call for nominations” to be published in the Federal Register allows companies to first identify tracts on which to bid during an upcoming lease sale on the refuge’s nearly 1.6 million acre coastal plain, which is about the size of Delaware. Leases may prove difficult to claw back once finalized, though court challenges are expected.

The move will open up public lands to drilling, as well as logging, mining and grazing. Biden campaigned on protecting public lands from these activities.

A Republican-controlled Congress in 2017 authorized drilling in the refuge, which is home to tens of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl, along with polar bears and Arctic foxes. President George W. Bush had promoted drilling there but ran into congressional roadblocks.

It remains to be seen how strong drilling interest in the refuge might be from major U.S. oil concerns, including Exxon Mobil XOM, +5.76% and Chevron CVX, +7.25%. For one thing, infrastructure and roads have been purposefully kept out of the refuge and would require investment. Historically low oil prices CL00, -0.36% may also preclude investing in expansion. The area is estimated to contain as much as 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable crude.

Hilcorp Energy Co., Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips COP, +7.69% already produce oil and gas in Alaska’s north slope. Chevron partnered with BP BP, +5.10% on the only test well ever drilled in the refuge more than three decades ago.

Major banks including Goldman Sachs GS, +1.50%, JPMorgan Chase JPM, +2.82%, Citigroup C, +3.57%, Morgan Stanley MS, +2.65% and Wells Fargo WFC, +3.44% are among the two dozen financial firms that have said they will not fund any new oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge as part of their own climate-change initiatives.

Smaller participants might be likely to bid on leases. For instance, some Alaska Native tribal corporations have already expressed an interest in conducting seismic tests to identify oil reserves on the coastal plain, the Washington Post reported.

“This call for nominations brings us one step closer to holding a historic first Coastal Plain lease sale, satisfying the directive of Congress in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and advancing this administration’s policy of energy independence,” Chad Padgett, the Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska state director said in a statement.

Opponents have said that extracting oil from the refuge would exacerbate the climate crisis, violate the human rights of indigenous Alaskans who live off the land and is “fraught with financial risk,” given the likelihood of long legal battles over refuge leases. A group of more than 250 signatories, mostly representing environmental, indigenous and investing interests, expressed such concern in a letter released in September.

Opening up the refuge follows a host of fossil fuel-favorable policy moves during the Trump administration, including the roll back of more than 125 environmental regulations or policies. Some of these protections had been in place for decades, spanning administrations from both parties.

Those in favor of the rollbacks have said they are expensive for business and unevenly enforced. But the industry has also spent mightily in Washington to make its case. Lobbying data from the Center for Responsive Politics showed that during the 2017-2018 midterm election cycle, corporations, individuals and trade groups in the fossil fuel industry spent $265,773,915 in lobbying and $93,392,002 in contributions to national-level candidates, parties and outside groups, bringing the total spending by the industry to more than $359 million in two years.

Still in the works are plans to open up much of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to drilling and narrowing the definition of critical habitat for endangered species, including when companies are liable for killing migratory birds.

The government also plans to auction off oil and gas rights to more than 383,000 acres of federal land in the Lower 48 in the next two months, Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigner for the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity, told the Washington Post.

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