Stop Trump’s Fire Sale of Oil Leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
These lands are vital to indigenous peoples and wildlife. Biden’s administration needs to protect them and take on the climate crisis.
While the world is fixated on the embarrassing spectacle of Trump’s refusal to concede the American election to President-elect Joe Biden, Trump is holding a fire sale for oil drilling rights on one of America’s most important protected places, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The Arctic refuge is roughly the size of South Carolina and is home to caribou, gray wolves, musk oxen, hundreds of bird species, and vulnerable polar bear populations. It is a beautiful, sacred place in Northern Alaska that is essential to a local indigenous tribe, the Gwich’in. It sustains the caribou herd on which their physical and cultural survival depends. Trump’s move to expedite the sale of these oil rights leases in a federally protected wilderness in the final days of his Administration is immoral and on the fringe of legality. It should be stopped at all costs.
The idea of exploiting this area for oil has been hotly contested for nearly 40 years. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act authorized the sale of leases for exploration and drilling along the coastal area. Advocates tout the…
