Biden moves to limit oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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1. The Biden administration moved Wednesday to narrow the scope of an oil-and-gas lease sale in Alaska’s [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2024/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2) that was mandated under President [Donald Trump](https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2).

   The plan underscores how the Biden administration is racing to cement its environmental legacy mere hours after Trump secured a second term. Trump has vowed to boost oil drilling in the refuge, as part of broader plans to [expand fossil fuel production on public lands](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/06/trump-win-climate-change-oil-gas/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3) across the country.

   For nearly four decades, drilling was banned in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, whose 19.3 million acres provide critical habitat for the [Southern Beaufort Sea’s remaining polar bears](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/30/usgs-polar-bears/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13&itid=lk_inline_manual_5), along with tens of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl. But in 2017, Trump signed a tax bill mandating at least two lease sales of 400,000 acres each in the refuge’s 1.6 million-acre coastal plain by the end of 2024.

   Two weeks before Trump left office in 2021, the Interior Department [auctioned off the first of these leases](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/01/06/trump-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-polar-bears/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8) to oil companies and an Alaska state agency. But the Biden administration [suspended ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/06/01/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8)and then [canceled](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/09/06/biden-alaska-oil-drilling-ban-willow/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8) those leases, saying Interior had done an “insufficient analysis” of drilling’s impact in the environmentally sensitive region.

   Read more here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/06/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-drilling/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/06/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-drilling/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)

2. Well,that won’t matter come January…..

3. Antiquities Act! Please use it!

4. I hope this remains. 

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