Trump and Oil Companies Target Arctic Refuge for Drilling

In 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress added an amendment to the President’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The Trump Administration is now working overtime to issue permits for an invasion of seismic testing and oil crews.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, located in the Northeast corner of Alaska on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, is the largest wildlife refuge in America at more than 19 million acres.

The strip of land, called the 1002 Area, consists of 1.5 million acres along the coast, just east of Prudhoe Bay’s oil drilling complex, and has long been sought by petroleum interests for oil exploration and drilling. The refuge was first established by President Eisenhower’s Department of Interior in 1960. In 1980, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which along with other parks and refuges, expanded the Arctic Refuge, designated much of the interior area of the refuge as protected wilderness, and set aside the 1002 Area as protected. However, the Act unfortunately left open the possibility for oil drilling if Congress chose to do so.

Many members of Congress, including some Republicans, oppose oil exploration and related damaging activity in this pristine area. They support permanent wilderness designation for the 1002 Area, which would preclude any oil drilling. Only by attaching the oil drilling provision to the popular, unrelated tax-cut legislation was the Republican majority able to sneak-in the amendment for Trump’s signature.

The coastal plain is the heart of the at-risk refuge, where the vast Porcupine caribou herd gathers on the plain for calving, coming from various distances in the refuge to congregate in the thousands. Indigenous tribes in the Refuge are dependent upon the caribou for their livelihoods. Furthermore, the 1002 Area is the only place in the United States where polar bears den on land instead of on sea ice.

Oil drilling would turn the coastal area into an industrial scale development, including roads, drilling pads, airstrips, men with guns, and pipelines that would feed into the Alaska pipeline in Prudhoe Bay.

Oil drilling in the Refuge would also speed the development of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean, which would threaten beluga and bowhead whales, walruses, and seals.

On August 17, 2020, proclaiming that oil drilling would result in thousands of jobs and energy independence for the US, Interior Secretary, and former oil company lobbyist David Bernhardt announced leasing plans for the Arctic Refuge.

The Administration is hoping to issue permits before the end of the year, especially to begin seismic tests in the area to determine the existence of possible oil reserves. No one knows how much oil may lie under the 1002 Area.

But seismic testing itself poses a danger, as the sound reverberations could disturb wildlife, including denning polar bears, grizzly bears, and wolves.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been called America’s Serengeti, due to the vast herds of caribou combined with the many other wildlife species found in this beautiful area.

Five major US banks (Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Chase, Citi, and Morgan Stanley) have announced they will not fund any oil drilling in the Arctic. They consider such drilling as too much a business risk.

We should not sacrifice the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the greed of the oil industry. Due to climate change and human health, we need to stop burning oil in any event. It is best to leave the oil in the refuge in the ground.