President Joe Biden took another ax to American energy Wednesday with the cancellation of Trump-era leases for oil and gas development in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In 2017 through the landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Congress opened up a 1.6-million-acre patch along Alaska’s north coast for drilling leases. The section amounts to less than 10 percent of the entire refuge, which spans 19.6 million acres in northeast Alaska and is about the size of South Carolina.
“My Administration is canceling all remaining oil and gas leases issued under the last administration in the Arctic Refuge and proposing to protect 13 million acres in the Western Arctic,” Biden wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “There’s more to do,” he added ominously.
Biden previously paused leases in 2021 while their environmental effects were assessed — months after signing an executive order on his first day in office to halt any new drilling leases on public land. In August, a federal judge upheld the administration’s pause on development in the region over Alaskans’ objections.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland celebrated the cancellation of leases in a Wednesday press release.
“President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history,” Haaland said. “The steps we are taking today further that commitment, based on the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations.” The indigenous tribe closest to the area in
