During his first term, #Trump signed a 2017 tax bill that required 2 #oil & #gas lease sales in the #Arctic #CoastalPlain, but the #Biden admin later suspended & then canceled those leases.
On Thurs, the #Interior Dept said it would hold an oil & gas lease sale in the coastal plain this winter. The agency also said it would reinstate 7 oil leases in the refuge that the state of #Alaska acquired in 2021 but that had been canceled 2 yrs later by Biden.
The #Trump admini on Thursday announced a plan to allow #oil & #gas #drilling in Alaska’s #Arctic National #WildlifeRefuge, one of the largest remaining tracts of pristine #wilderness in the #US.
The decision was the latest twist in a long-running fight over the fate of the refuge’s #CoastalPlain, an unspoiled expanse of 1.56 million acres that is believed to sit atop billions of barrels of oil but is also a critical #habitat for #PolarBears, #caribou, #MigratoryBirds & other #wildlife.
Nonilex