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The Biden administration is moving forward with the smallest possible oil and gas lease sale with a controversial mandate to take place on a wildlife refuge.
The Bureau of Land Management is to auction opportunities to drill in the Alaskan wildlife refuge later this year under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Many Democrats have opposed oil drilling there, and the Biden administration now says it will auction only the minimum 400,000 acres required by law.
Drilling rights in the refuge will be auctioned off on January 9, just 11 days before President-elect Trump takes office.
The lease sale will be the second required by law. The Trump administration conducted the first in 2021, although amid a major activist backlash against drilling on the refuge, there was little interest in really drilling into it the first time drilling rights were offered.
The few drilling leases that were issued at the time were later suspended by the Biden administration, which cited “multiple legal deficiencies.”
In its new decision, the Biden administration also said it was limiting the sale to places with the most potential for oil and gas discovery.
It also does not allow drilling in the nesting areas of polar bears and migratory birds, and aims to protect other species such as caribou and porcupines.
The arctic refuge is home to grizzly bears, polar bears, gray wolves, caribou and more than 200 species of birds and contains land considered sacred by the Gwich’in people.
