Earthjustice applauded an announcement today from the Department of the Interior advancing a process to enact stronger protections for public lands in Alaska’s Western Arctic (also known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or Reserve). These lands provide irreplaceable wildlife habitat, are critical for traditional subsistence practices of local people, and are undergoing dramatic disruption due to climate change as they remain under threat from oil development.

Interior announced today it will seek public comment for the next 60 days on a new process to determine how it might expand protections from oil development for the area’s critical ecological resources, like caribou, birds, and polar bears.

The process announced today is the next step following new regulations within the Reserve that were announced by the Biden administration in April.

Earthjustice released the following statement in response to today’s announcement:

“Signs of climate change are everywhere this summer, yet Big Oil and its backers remain bent on drilling for oil in America’s Arctic, a region warming four times faster than the rest of the world. We’re encouraged that Interior has initiated a new process that will hopefully deliver on the protections the law has always required for the Western Arctic, and we will work to ensure it results in stronger safeguards from oil development for wildlife and vital subsistence resources like caribou and birds,” said Earthjustice attorney Erik Grafe.