U.S. ditches Trump-era policies for Arctic Alaska oil reserve
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[April 26, 2022]
By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The Biden
administration on Monday overturned a controversial Trump-era policy
that would have opened new swathes of Arctic Alaska to oil development.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), part of the Department of Interior,
resurrected Obama-era management policies in the National Petroleum
Reserve in Alaska, a 23-million-acre (9.3 million hectare) area on the
western side of Alaska's North Slope.
Those reinstated policies, contained in a plan issued in 2013, allow oil
leasing in about half of the reserve while boosting protections for
areas considered important to the Arctic ecosystem and to indigenous
residents.
The plan by the administration of former President Donald Trump, issued
in 2020, sought to allow oil development on more than 80% of the
reserve. It would have allowed leasing even at Teshekpuk Lake, the North
Slope's largest lake and an area prized for wildlife that had been
protected under rules dating back to the Reagan administration.
The Trump plan was challenged by two lawsuits filed in the federal court
in Alaska. No lease sales were ever held under it. The BLM action
reinstating Obama-era management policies was part of Interior's
response to those lawsuits.
The National Petroleum Reserve, the largest tract of undisturbed public
land in the United States, has drawn interest from oil companies that
are expanding development farther west on the North Slope. Development
is clustered in the northeastern corner of the reserve, the area closest
to existing pipelines and legacy oil fields on state land to the east.
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U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) holds up a photo of a gas pump
display featuring a sticker of U.S. President Joe Biden, during a
press conference about high gas prices for consumers at the U.S.
Capitol in Washington, U.S., April 6, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth
Frantz/File Photo
ConocoPhillips is the most active
company in the reserve. Its interests there include the proposed
multibillion-dollar Willow project, which holds an estimated 600
million barrels of oil.
U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican and supporter of
expanded leasing, criticized the decision as being against energy
security at a time when Russia had invaded Ukraine, even though the
Trump-era plan was not expected to immediately boost production, if
at all.
"Ukrainian grandmothers are bravely standing up to tanks, but
President Biden can't even bring himself to stand up to the woke
left and unleash American energy production," Sullivan said on
Twitter.
Environmentalists welcomed the BLM decision but called for more
protections.
"The answer to energy security does not lie beneath the thawing
Arctic permafrost but in accelerating the shift to clean, renewable
sources of power generation," said Kristin Miller of the Alaska
Wilderness League.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage, additional reporting by
Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Bradley Perrett)
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