Biden Administration Expected to Cancel Drilling Leases in Alaskan Wildlife Refuge
The New York Times The oil and gas rights had been sold to the states economic development agency under the Trump administration.
The Biden administration will cancel oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a vast, remote coastal plain in Alaska that President Donald J. Trump tried to open to fossil fuel development, according to two people familiar with the plan.
The leases are held by Alaskas state-owned economic development agency, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. The decision by the Interior Department to rescind them comes a month after a federal judge upheld the agencys right to do so.
The refuge is believed to sit atop some 11 billion barrels of oil, but is also home to grizzly and polar bears, snowy owls, migrating waterfowl and herds of moose and caribou. Canceling the leases is likely to set the stage for a legal battle over the fate of the land.
