Trump opens protected Alaskan Arctic refuge to oil drillers

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Trump opens protected Alaskan Arctic refuge to oil drillers

The Bureau of Land Management will offer leases to the 1.6m-acre coastal plain which is home to threatened polar bears

Emily Holden in Washington
Fri 13 Sep 2019 00.41 BST

The Trump administration is finalizing plans to allow oil and gas drilling in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that has been protected for decades.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will offer leases on essentially the entire 1.6m-acre coastal plain, which includes places where threatened polar bears have dens and porcupine caribou visit for calving. Drilling operations are expected to be problematic for Indigenous populations, many of which rely on subsistence hunting and fishing.

The Democrat-controlled House just hours earlier passed legislation to protect the area, but Republicans in the majority in the Senate are highly unlikely to approve the bill.

The Alaska Wilderness League’s executive director Adam Kolton said that “to no one’s surprise, the administration chose the most aggressive leasing alternative, not even pretending that this is about restraint or meaningful protection”.

“With an eye on developing the entirety of the fragile coastal plain, the administration has been riding roughshod over science, silencing dissent and shutting out entire Indigenous communities,” Kolton said.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/12/trump-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil-gas-drilling

[madaboutharry]

1. I despise this monster.

It seems like he gets his thrills by destroying things.