"Nearly three years after the Trump administration sold the first-ever oil drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the White House Wednesday canceled those leases in a huge blow to pro-oil Alaskans.

The Biden administration said it would revoke the seven remaining oil and gas leases that were sold to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) in 2021 in the refuge, a pristine swath of public lands wedged between Alaska’s Brooks Range and the Arctic Ocean that may hold enormous oil and gas reserves.

The administration also said it is proposing to expand existing protections against drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), a 23-million-acre area that lies west of ANWR on the Arctic Coast.

The decision follows the administration’s March approval of the Willow project, an $8 billion drilling program in the NPR-A that angered climate activists and environmental groups."

Heather Richards reports for E&E News September 6, 2023. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"Biden To Block Oil Drilling In ‘Irreplaceable’ Alaskan Wildlands" (Washington Post) [3]

"Biden Administration to Bar Drilling on Millions of Acres in Alaska" (New York Times) [4]

"Biden to Cancel Arctic Oil Drilling Rights Sold by Trump" (Bloomberg Green) [5]