Good News: Trump's ANWR Oil-Lease Sale Was a Failure

[swag]

https://www.outsideonline.com/2420167/trump-anwr-oil-lease-sale

Wes Siler
Jan 8, 2021

Excerpt:
. . .

The sale’s poor performance was widely predicted. Following pressure from the public, and given both the extreme expense of developing extraction operations in the remote area and the environmental impacts of doing so, all major American banks announced they would not offer any funding for drilling in ANWR.

The AIDEA plans to sit on its leases, with the goal of making them available to oil companies, should any of them express an interest. “By acquiring these tracts, Alaska preserves the right to responsibly develop its natural resources,” said Alan Weitzner, the organization’s executive director, in an announcement accompanying the sale. It’s unclear if Graber (the real estate investor) or Regenerate Alaska have the funds to develop the tracts they purchased on their own, or if they, too, are hoping to attract outside investments or simply resell them.

Those leases could prove to be very temporary. With Democrats taking control of both houses of Congress, the Biden administration will be able to stall development or even buy the leases back. Representative Jared Huffman, a Democrat from California, has already announced that he plans to push for permanent protection of ANWR, and both President-elect Biden and his nominee for secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, are on record as opposing drilling there.

The timing of the failed lease sale, rushed through by the DOI at the eleventh hour, along with the incoming administration’s stated desire to protect ANWR, could represent the end of the 40-year long fight over drilling in the 19.6-million-acre refuge. Drilling proponents had hoped ANWR might contain billions of barrels of oil. Opponents argued that the environmental costs of drilling there were simply too high. ANWR’s coastal plain, where these leases are located, is home to the most imperiled polar bear population in the Arctic and is a crucial habitat for other animals like caribou and migratory birds. Climate change caused by fossil-fuel emissions already threatens the area, something that could worsen by burning any oil present beneath the surface.

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Far FUCKING out!

I hope this drives a stake through the heart of this highly ill-advised venture - for all time.

[mopinko]

2. i said it here- anyone who bid on this shit was a greedy fool.

[IcyPeas]

3. They thank you.....

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