"Much of the news out of the Arctic lately has been about efforts to protect the fragile region from new oil and gas development, but that may be about to change.

Less than a month after the Obama administration announced it was banning offshore oil and gas production in most of the Arctic, there are signs that a place many conservationists regard as the crown jewel of the Arctic — the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — could one day be open for drilling.

After decades of unsuccessful attempts to gain access to oil beneath the pristine coastal lowlands, Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation this past week began yet another effort to open a region experts say may hold one of the nation’s largest reserves of oil and natural gas."

William Yardley reports for the Los Angeles Times January 7, 2017. [2]