The Biden administration plans to block oil and gas drilling across millions of acres of protected areas in Alaska that Congress set aside specifically for resource development.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) is expected to finalize the regulations on Friday, a few days before Earth Day. These regulations will effectively trap more than 13 million acres of public land within the National Petroleum Reserve-A (NPR-A), a person familiar with the agency’s timing told Fox News Digital. This regulation represents one of the most aggressive actions the Biden administration is pursuing under its climate change and conservation agenda.
According to the DOI, the proposed regulations would completely prohibit any new leasing across an area of 10.6 million acres, about 40% of the entire NPR-A. Additionally, the Bureau of Land Management will require DOI agencies to consider expanding protected areas or creating new protected areas within NPR-A at least every five years.
“As climate change causes the Arctic to warm more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, we are using the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland previously said. “We must do everything within our control to meet our expectations.” “President Biden is implementing the most ambitious climate change and conservation agenda in history.”
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Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Shannon Finney/Getty Images/File)
With the administration’s measures to curb development in the NPR-A region, future oil and gas leasing and industrial development will be limited to the “special will be severely restricted by region. A wild animal that lives on the northern slopes of Alaska. The DOI said closing land from resource development will help protect various wildlife species, including caribou.
The rule was first proposed in September and has since attracted more than 10,000 public comment letters reflecting both support and opposition to the rule.
And DOI officials met with multiple parties, according to an Office of Management and Budget filing reviewed by Fox News Digital.
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The regulation has support from Democrats and environmental groups, but has been roundly criticized by the state of Alaska, Alaska’s bipartisan Congressional delegation, local leaders, tribal groups, energy industry groups and Republican lawmakers. .
This diagram shows an oil development facility in Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope of Alaska. (Simon Brutie/Any Chance/Getty Images/File)
“Joe Biden is doing everything he can to attack America’s energy,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said at a news conference late Thursday. ” he said. “They’re going to ban oil production, especially in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. That’s like saying no more picnics in Yellowstone National Park.”
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who hosted the press conference, said in an interview with FOX Business on Thursday that sealing off NPR-A’s land would reduce oil and gas production to countries such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. He added that it would be entrusted to a government that hates the government. .
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In February, Sullivan, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) sent a letter to the White House highlighting the perspectives of Alaska Natives, many of whom support oil and gas development. asked them to consider. On NPR-A.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) denounced the Biden administration’s plan to shut down much of NPR-A. (Brandon Bell Pool/Getty Images/File)
“While we clearly recognize the impacts of climate change on Alaska’s environment, this administration’s policy goals do not negate Congressional direction on oil reserve management, nor do they “It does not override the obligation to listen and consider the people on the slopes who would be adversely affected by this proposed rule,” several Alaska Native leaders wrote in a comment letter to DOI.
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In all, NPR-A spans 23 million acres of public land in northern Alaska. First established in 1923 as a U.S. Navy petroleum reserve, it was transferred to the DOI in 1976 under the Naval Petroleum Reserve Production Act.
DOI did not respond to requests for comment.
