Trump’s Brazen Attempt to Open the Arctic Up to Drilling
Earthjustice is fighting efforts to target the biological heart of the Arctic Refuge for oil and gas development.
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Update, 12/02/17: The Senate has passed a tax reform bill containing a provision that opens the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. Because the House and Senate passed different versions of the bill, members of Congress must now agree on a blended version of the legislation. In a press statement, Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen said:
“The decades-long fight to protect the Arctic Refuge will continue beyond today’s Senate budget vote. Pro-drilling Senators faced many roadblocks before getting to this point, because drilling in the Arctic Refuge has no place in the budget process. Despite opposition from a majority of Americans who want the Refuge to remain protected, drilling proponents are willing to turn one of our last wild, intact landscapes—sacred to the Gwich’in people—into an industrial oil field. There is some Republican opposition in the House to including this poison pill in the final budget, and Earthjustice will fight hard to defeat this measure and preserve this treasured landscape for future generations.”
Take Action! You can help defend the Arctic Refuge
Original post, 9/25/17: Summer in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge doesn’t last for long, but in that brief burst, millions of migratory birds flock to this vast wilderness expanse from every direction. Taking wing from Asia, South America, Africa, Antarctica and all 50 U.S. states, they congregate to nest in the refuge, a national treasure that’s one of the last wild, intact landscapes on the planet. Caribou, polar bears, Arctic foxes and wolverines roam the vast expanse, which spans 19.6 million acres in Northeast Alaska.
The 1.5-million acre coastal plain within the refuge is a biologically rich swath that borders the Beaufort Sea. It’s considered sacred by the indigenous Gwich’in people, whose way of life has for millennia depended on the caribou that calve there each summer.
For decades, the Arctic Refuge and its coastal plain have been at the center of a political tug-of-war over fossil fuel extraction. Earthjustice has long partnered with a diverse coalition of groups on the side of protecting the refuge from oil and gas development. That battle reignited last week with news that the Trump administration is planning an attack on laws protecting the refuge, in order to accelerate oil drilling on the plain.
As the Washington Post revealed, the acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service instructed the agency’s Alaska regional director in an August memo to change a rule on “exploratory activity.” This precursor to oil drilling includes ear-piercing seismic blasting and underground shock waves to identify where oil deposits may lie.
The regional director was told to erase the part of the rule spelling out that these harmful exploratory tests were only allowed from Oct. 1, 1984 until May 31, 1986. This one shady little edit flies in the face of 35 years of established legal policy barring new oil exploration in the pristine wilderness area, throwing the biological heart of the refuge into immediate peril.
“We cannot and should not play politics with our national heritage, just to line the pockets of the oil and gas industry.”
Trump’s political appointees appear to be orchestrating this assault on the Arctic Refuge. Former commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, Joe Balash, who was nominated to a high-ranking Interior post, has submitted multiple proposals to conduct harmful seismic exploration on the Coastal Plain. And David Bernhardt, who Trump appointed to the second-highest position at Interior, represented the state of Alaska in a lawsuit in 2014 against the Interior Department to allow for seismic testing in the coastal plain, but lost. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that is suddenly pressuring for this rule change, answers to Interior.
Under federal law, only Congress can allow drilling in the refuge, and a 1980 law protects the coastal plain from oil and gas leasing and development. Yet other efforts that could jeopardize the refuge are moving forward simultaneously in Congress.
The House budget resolution for FY 2018 includes provisions that will be used to advance drilling in the refuge, signaling an attempt by congressional allies of the oil industry to insert a highly controversial policy issue into must-pass budget legislation. Meanwhile, the refuge isn’t the only Arctic landscape in the oil and gas industry’s sights. Earthjustice is currently opposing Arctic drilling proposals on multiple fronts, including offshore territories and public lands in the western Arctic.
Take Action! You can help defend the Arctic Refuge
Even as cries of “drill, baby, drill” seem to be echoing off the walls of smoky backrooms from Alaska to D.C., one might be surprised to learn that there isn’t actually any shortage of oil. Supplies have reached historic highs, and gas prices have dipped – which means the industry has little to gain financially by opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
“The Arctic Refuge is just too special to drill for oil and gas that we don’t need and should be kept in the ground,” says Earthjustice Associate Legislative Counsel Marissa Knodel. “For 30 years, Congress has respected the will of the vast majority of American people, who want to protect the Arctic Refuge. Drilling there should be excluded from any budget proposal. We cannot and should not play politics with our national heritage, just to line the pockets of the oil and gas industry.”
Based in Portland, OR, Rebecca is Earthjustice's Public Affairs and Communications Officer for lands, wildlife, and oceans.
Opened in 1978, our Alaska regional office works to safeguard public lands, waters, and wildlife from destructive oil and gas drilling, mining, and logging, and to protect the region's marine and coastal ecosystems.