Trump administration finalizes plan to open Alaska’s pristine wildlife refuge to oil and gas drilling

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Trump administration finalized plans Thursday to open the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to potential oil and gas drilling, renewing a long-simmering debate over whether to drill in one of the nation’s environmental gems.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced Thursday the decision that paves the way for future lease sales within the refuge’s 1.5 million-acre (631,309-hectare) coastal plain, an area considered sacred by the Gwich’in Indians. The plan fulfills promises made by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to reopen this part of the refuge for possible development. Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts bill, passed over the summer, called for at least four lease sales within the shelter over a 10-year period.

Burgum was joined in Washington, D.C. by Alaska’s Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy and the state’s congressional delegation for this and other land-related announcements, including the department’s decision to restore oil and gas leases in the refuge that had been canceled by the previous administration.

A federal judge said in March that the Biden administration lacked authority to cancel the leases, which were held by a state corporation that was the top bidder in the first lease sale for the shelter held at the end of Trump’s first term.

Leaders of the Gwich’in Indian communities near the refuge consider the coastal plain sacred, note its importance to a caribou herd on which they depend, and oppose drilling there. Leaders of Kaktovik, an Iñupiaq community within the refuge, support drilling and see responsible oil development as key to the economic well-being of their region.

“It is encouraging to see decision makers in Washington promoting policies that respect our voice and support Kaktovik’s long-term success,” Kaktovik Iñupiat Corp. President Charles “CC” Lampe said in a statement.

A second lease sale at the shelter, held near the end of President Joe Biden’s term, yielded no bidders, but critics of the sale argued its scope was too restrictive.

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Meda DeWitt, senior Alaska manager for The Wilderness Society, said that with Thursday’s announcement the administration “is placing corporate interests above the lives, cultures and spiritual responsibilities of the people whose survival depends on the Porcupine caribou herd, the freedom to live off this land and the health of the Arctic Refuge.”

The actions detailed Thursday are consistent with those outlined by Trump upon his return to office in January, which also included calls to accelerate construction of a highway to connect the communities of King Cove and Cold Bay.

Burgum announced Thursday the completion of a land-swap deal aimed at building the highway that would run through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. King Cove residents have long sought a land connection through the refuge to the all-weather Cold Bay Airport, seeing it as vital to accessing emergency medical care. Dunleavy and the congressional delegation have supported the effort, calling it a matter of life and safety.

Conservationists have vowed to legally challenge the agreement, and some tribal leaders fear a highway would scare away the migratory birds they depend on. The refuge, near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, contains internationally recognized habitat for migratory waterfowl. Previous land swap proposals have been met with controversy and litigation.

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, said the latest land deal would exchange about 500 acres (202 hectares) of “ecologically irreplaceable wildlands” inside the refuge for up to 1,739 acres (703.7 hectares) of King Cove Corp. lands outside the refuge. Tribal leaders in some communities further north, in the Yup’ik communities of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region, have expressed concern that highway development would harm migratory birds important to their subsistence lifestyles.

“Together with the Native Villages of Hooper Bay and Paimiut, we plan to challenge this decision in court,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director of the center.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, told reporters that she has been fighting for land access for King Cove during her tenure and has been both in the community and at the shelter. He called the refuge a “literal barn” for many waterfowl and said it was in everyone’s interest to ensure a road was built with minimal disruption.

“I think it’s important to remember that no one is talking about a multi-lane paved highway that moves a lot of big trucks back and forth,” he said. “It is still an 11-mile, single-lane, non-commercial use gravel road.”