The Trump administration on Thursday moved closer to its goal of oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by releasing an environmental analysis that lays out a plan to begin selling drilling rights.
Under the plan, rights could be sold in a small portion of the long-contested refuge as soon as next year.
“An energy-dominant America starts with an energy-dominant Alaska, and among the scores of accomplishments we have had at Interior under President Trump, taking these steps toward opening the [refuge] stands out among the most impactful toward bolstering America’s economic strength and security,” said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who is leaving his post next month.
Once the environmental review is published in the Federal Register on Dec. 28, the public will have 45 days to comment on it.
The review outlines four approaches to leasing land in the refuge for oil production that encompass “a range of leasing alternatives.” One of those options is not drilling at all.
The first lease sale would be held after Interior produces a final environmental impact statement, likely next year. However, actual drilling could be much farther away, due to expected court challenges and additional studies and approvals required for energy development.
Environmental groups immediately accused the Trump administration of rushing the leasing process faster than the timeline Congress outlined when it voted last year to allowing drilling in the refuge.
“There is simply no precedent for such a rushed, inadequate review of the impacts of oil and gas development in Arctic wilderness,” said Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League.
ANWR, as the refuge is known, was created under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960. In 1980, Congress provided additional protections to the 19 million-acre refuge but set aside a 1.5 million-acre section known as the “1002 area,” where billions of barrels of crude oil are believed to lie beneath the coastal plain. Republicans last year were successful in achieving their goal to allow energy exploration in the area as part of their tax overhaul legislation.
Under the tax law, the Interior Department must hold the first lease sale by 2021 and another by 2024, and offer up at least 400,000 acres each time.
Republican lawmakers representing Alaska and Interior officials have said they hope to have a lease sale as soon as next year, ahead of the timeline outlined in the law allowing drilling in ANWR.
Democrats and environmentalists say drilling would harm the ecosystem of what they describe as one of the wildest places left on earth, inhabited by animals such as polar bears, caribou, and arctic foxes.
Republicans expect drilling in ANWR to raise $1 billion over a decade to help pay for tax reform, but Democrats contend that won’t happen in light of low oil prices and steep competition from natural gas.
