Trump Administration Pushes Forward on Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Drilling

The Trump administration has announced a planning process to allow for oil exploration, leasing and related development activities on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, just a day before the eighth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The publicly stated timeline to sell refuge leases to the oil industry–as soon as early 2019 – is even faster than Congress required in its deeply unpopular legislative authorization for drilling. Oil exploration and development would jeopardize wildlife and Alaska native subsistence rights and contribute to global climate change.

Statement from Defenders of Wildlife President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark:

“It is shameful that on the anniversary of our nation’s worst environmental disaster, the Trump administration announces plans to open pristine wild lands to more destructive oil drilling. The Trump administration’s reckless dash to expedite drilling and destroy the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will only hasten a trip to the courthouse. We will not stand by and watch them desecrate this fragile landscape.

“Drilling would threaten hundreds of species that depend on the coastal plain for survival, including the federally protected polar bear. It would violate the human rights of the Gwich’in people, and further exacerbate the impacts of climate change. A spiderweb of pipelines, roads, well pads, gravel mines and other drilling infrastructure would turn this global treasure into a polluted industrial complex.

“The Arctic Refuge is a place of stunning beauty and incredible and irreplaceable wildlife conservation value. A hurried and inadequate environmental review process cannot hide the damage that exploration and leasing will cause to these vital wildlands or quell the public outcry against drilling rigs on our most iconic national wildlife refuge.”