United States President Joe Biden's administration is set to cancel the drilling leases that would allow for the search of oil across millions of acres in Alaska that were issued under Donald Trump's leadership.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Interior Department announced that it would cancel oil and gas leases in a federal wildlife refuge that an Alaska state development agency bought during the final days of former United States President Donald Trump's term.
Cancelation of Alaska Drilling Leases
The situation comes as Biden has pledged to protect the roughly 19.6 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for polar bears and caribou. In a statement, the Democratic president said that the climate crisis is heating the Arctic more than twice as fast as other parts of the world.
The former administration issued the Alaska Industrial Development Export Authority (AIDEA) seven leases in relation to the region only days before Biden's official inauguration. While environmentalists have praised the Biden administration's decision, a Republican senator from Alaska criticized it, as per Reuters.
The area is home to officials who have sought to open up drilling in the reserve to secure jobs and revenues for the state. Additionally, the government said it would bar new leasing on more than 10 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, located on the North Slope, the largest undisturbed public land in the United States.
The development is the latest action by the Biden administration to curb oil and gas activities on public lands as part of a broader effort to fight against climate change. The Democratic president, preparing for a re-election campaign in 2024, also faced mounting pressure to boost domestic fuel supplies to keep pump prices low.
The American government earlier this year approved a $7 billion ConocoPhillips drilling project in Alaska that immediately drew criticism from the United Nations. The latter has urged member states to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels that are exacerbating the climate crisis.
Exacerbating the Climate Crisis
Climate activists criticized the Biden administration after allowing the Willow project to be continued in March. They called it a "carbon bomb," and many said it represented a betrayal of the Democratic president's campaign promise of "no new drilling, period" on federal lands and waters, according to the New York Times.
But since then, the Biden administration has gone to great lengths to emphasize its efforts to reduce carbon emissions from burning oil and gas. The president previously said that efforts to cancel all remaining oil and gas leases issued under the former administration would help preserve the country's Arctic lands and wildlife.
While the Biden administration's efforts do not include stopping the Willow project, they would ensure long-term protections for areas that provide vital wildlife habitat. The president of the conservation group Trout Unlimited, Chris Wood, estimated that the federal government has not set aside so many acres of land for conservation since the early 2000s, said the Washington Post.
