Biden to revoke Trump’s Alaska oil drilling leases.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is set to make a groundbreaking announcement on Wednesday. According to sources familiar with the‌ matter, the department will cancel oil⁤ and gas leases in a federal wildlife refuge that ⁤were hastily purchased by an Alaska state development agency during⁣ the final ​days of the Trump administration.

The Alaska Industrial⁣ Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) managed to secure seven leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge just one day before President ‍Joe Biden’s inauguration. Biden had made a promise to protect this vast 19.6 million-acre habitat, which is home to polar bears ‌and caribou.

While Interior and AIDEA officials have not yet commented on the matter, this move is part ​of Biden’s broader agenda to combat climate change by reining in oil and gas activities on public ⁣lands.

Background

• In January 2021, the Interior Department, under the Trump administration, sold leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge despite objections from environmentalists and ⁢indigenous groups.
• A tax bill passed by Republicans in⁢ 2017 opened ‍the area to oil and gas leasing and mandated two lease sales by December 2024.
• The 2021‍ lease sale generated only $14 million in high bids, mostly from AIDEA, as the oil and gas industry showed limited interest.
• Following the lease sale, Biden’s administration suspended the leases pending an environmental review. AIDEA sued, but a federal judge dismissed their ⁢claims, stating that the government’s delay was reasonable.
• The two ‍other entities that won leases at the ANWR lease sale withdrew from their holdings in 2022.

For years, Alaskan officials have advocated for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to boost the state’s economy. However, oil production in Alaska has significantly declined over the past⁢ three decades, currently standing ⁤at less than 500,000 barrels per day compared to over two million in 1988.

Alaska senator Dan Sullivan criticized ‌the Interior ‌Department’s decision, expressing the frustration and anger felt by many‌ Alaskans towards the Biden administration’s actions.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Washington and Nichola Groom in ‌Los Angeles; editing by Chizu Nomiyama, David Gregorio, and Mark Porter)