Trump Admin Rushing to Award Drilling Rights in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Before President Biden takes office, the fascist MAGA regime is rushing to invite oil companies to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Evil beyond comprehension.

The Trump administration is asking oil and gas firms to pick spots where they want to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it races to open the pristine wilderness to development and lock in drilling rights before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The “call for nominations”... allows companies to identify tracts on which to bid during an upcoming lease sale on the refuge’s nearly 1.6 million-acre coastal plain, a sale that the Interior Department aims to hold before Biden takes the oath of office in January.  

A GOP-controlled Congress in 2017 authorized drilling in the refuge, a vast wilderness that is home to tens of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl, along with polar bears and Arctic foxes.

Auctioning off oil permits while oil trades at record lows is the last gasp of a defeated Administration that's been wrong on climate, the economy and everything else for four years.

The administration is pressing ahead with other moves to expand energy development and scale back federal environmental rules over the next few weeks. It aims to finalize a plan to open up the vast majority of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to drilling, as well as adopt a narrower definition of what constitutes critical habitat for endangered species and when companies are liable for killing migratory birds.

At the Energy Department, officials may weaken energy-efficiency requirements for shower heads, as well as washers and dryers before Inauguration Day.

Great opportunity to self-identify for Worst Companies in the World contention. Step right up.

It is unclear how much appetite there is in the oil and gas industry for drilling in the refuge, given the lack of infrastructure there and the public backlash that could accompany such a move. The area provides habitat for more than 270 species, including the world’s remaining Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears, 250 musk oxen and 300,000 snow geese.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) decried the move, saying, “This administration is ending as it began, with a desperate push for oil drilling regardless of the human or environmental costs."

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/16/arctic-refuge-drilling-trump/