The Biden admin­is­tra­tion on Tues­day sus­pend­ed oil drilling leas­es in Alaska’s Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Refuge, grant­ed by the Trump regime days before Trump left office. The deci­sion could set the stage for a con­clu­sion to the forty-year bat­tle over whether to open the Refuge’s coastal plain to drilling. The plain serves as a calv­ing ground to more than 100,000 ani­mals of the Por­cu­pine Cari­bou Herd.

The Arc­tic Refuge, at nine­teen mil­lion acres, is America’s largest wild­land, and major habi­tat not only for cari­bou but wolves, polar bears off the Beau­fort Sea as well as bar­ren ground griz­zly bears. The coastal plain lies just to the east of the Prud­hoe Bay oil field, where pro­duc­tion is on the decline.

Cari­bou graze on the coastal plain of the Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Refuge, with the Brooks Range as a back­drop. (USFWS)

“Pres­i­dent Biden believes America’s nation­al trea­sures are cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic cor­ner­stones of our coun­try and he is grate­ful for the prompt action by the Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or to sus­pend all leas­ing pend­ing a review of deci­sions made in the last administration’s final days that could have changed for­ev­er the char­ac­ter of this spe­cial place,” said Gina McCarthy, Biden’s cli­mate adviser.

Days ago, how­ev­er, the Biden admin­is­tra­tion came down in favor of a Trump regime deci­sion that gave Cono­coPhillips a go-ahead for its Wil­low project, locat­ed in the twen­ty-three mil­lion acre Nation­al Petro­le­um Reserve west of Prud­hoe Bay. Wil­low is antic­i­pat­ed to yield between 100,000 and 160,000 bar­rels a day.

Sev­en­teen envi­ron­men­tal and Indige­nous groups have filed a fed­er­al law­suit to block Wil­low. The project is sup­port­ed by the Arc­tic Slope Region­al Cor­po­ra­tion, the North Slope Bor­ough, and by Alaska’s Repub­li­can con­gres­sion­al delegation.

The con­trast­ing deci­sions have led to a two-step by Alas­ka law­mak­ers and envi­ron­men­tal groups. Trustees for Alas­ka, a defend­er of the 49th State’s envi­ron­ment, said the Biden admin­is­tra­tion was argu­ing that “bare bones Trump era analy­sis of green­house gas emis­sions should be upheld.” But Sen­a­tor Lisa Murkows­ki, R‑Alaska, pro­claimed: “This is a great day for Alaska.”

U.S. Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Deb Haa­land, as a mem­ber of Con­gress, signed a state­ment oppos­ing Wil­low. After the admin­is­tra­tion filed its legal brief sup­port­ing the project, Sen­a­tor Dan Sul­li­van, R‑Alaska, sang the prais­es of “an open rela­tion­ship where you can reach out to Cab­i­net officials.”

Added Murkows­ki: “For all the right rea­sons, the admin­is­tra­tion came to the right con­clu­sion and it was the con­clu­sion that we had been argu­ing vig­or­ous­ly for.”

The Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Refuge, by Zodi­ac in Demar­ca­tion Bay in Alas­ka (Pho­to: Danielle Brigi­da, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The Nation­al Petro­le­um Reserve is home to the West­ern Arc­tic Cari­bou Herd, even larg­er than the Por­cu­pine herd to the east. Teshekpuk Lake and its sur­round­ing wet­land draw migra­to­ry birds from across North America.

An esti­mat­ed 35,000 White Front­ed Geese and 37,000 Brant mold near the lake, which is also home to 60,000 ani­mals of the Teshep­uk Cari­bou Herd.

The great herds evoked then-Pres­i­dent George H.W. Bush to say that Alaska’s North Slope is home to “more darned cari­bou than you can shake a stick at.”

Both Bush pres­i­dents relent­less­ly pro­mot­ed oil drilling on Alasaka’s North Slope.

The deci­sion to sus­pend leas­es in the Arc­tic Refuge brought a rever­sal of roles, cries of protest from the Alas­ka del­e­ga­tion and cheers from those who have fought against oil drilling on the coastal plain.

“The Trump administration’s efforts to short­cut envi­ron­men­tal laws fall apart when exposed to the facts that fed­er­al sci­en­tists say Arc­tic Refuge drilling can­not be done safe­ly and oil com­pa­nies don’t want to drill there,” Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell, D‑Washington, said in a statement.

“Now it is up to Con­gress to per­ma­nent­ly pro­tect this irre­place­able mil­lion-year-old ecosys­tem and facil­i­tate new eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties based on pre­serv­ing America’s pris­tine pub­lic lands for out­door recreation.”

But Alaska’s Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Mike Dun­leavy heat­ed up the par­ti­san boil­er­plate, say­ing in a state­ment: “I oppose this assault on Alaska’s econ­o­my and will use every means nec­es­sary to undo this egre­gious fed­er­al overreach.”

When it passed the Alas­ka Nation­al Inter­est Lands Con­ser­va­tion Act in 1980, Con­gress enlarged the Refuge to nine­teen mil­lion acres and gave a wilder­ness des­ig­na­tion to eight mil­lion acres, but left open to prospect of drilling the Refuge’s coastal plain with the approval of Con­gress. Pro-oil Alas­ka politi­cians have embraced a cause defined by then-Gov­er­nor Sarah Palin: “Drill, baby, drill.”

Cantwell has become the chief defend­er of the Refuge’s wildness.

Maria Cantwell smiles as she lis­tens to a con­stituent ques­tion at a health­care town hall (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

She has resist­ed drilling since she arrived in the Sen­ate in 2001.

She out­ma­neu­vered Alaska’s senior Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Ted Stevens in 2005 when he tried to use a defense autho­riza­tion bill to autho­rize drilling in the Refuge. Stevens erupt­ed on the Sen­ate floor and vowed to cam­paign against Cantwell the fol­low­ing year. (She was reelect­ed with fifty-eight per­cent of the vote.) Repub­li­cans used a sim­i­lar back­door tac­tic in 2017, antic­i­pat­ing drilling rev­enue from the Arc­tic Refuge as part of their Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Cantwell tried to stop the autho­riza­tion but lost on a 52–48 Sen­ate floor vote.

The cause of cli­mate jus­tice has res­onat­ed in Alas­ka, per­haps explain­ing why major oil com­pa­nies shied away from the Trump regime’s call for bids.

Only two small com­pa­nies and a state-owned devel­op­ment cor­po­ra­tion “bit” at the Trump offer. Sev­er­al promi­nent Wall Street banks have flat­ly stat­ed that they will not finance any drilling plat­forms, pipelines or haul roads in the Refuge.

Alas­ka is warm­ing at a faster clip than any oth­er place in America.

Vis­i­tors to Denali Nation­al Park are treat­ed to “drunk­en forests,” trees lean­ing in var­i­ous direc­tions atop melt­ing permafrost.

Cono­coPhillips has promised to install “chillers” on the Wil­low project, to keep the per­mafrost from thaw­ing beneath its drilling operations.

Biden has sus­pend­ed the lease sales made under the Trump regime. But the new admin­is­tra­tion has not bought back or can­celed the leases.

Its action is expect­ed to set off a pro­longed legal battle.

Drilling in the Arc­tic Refuge – “ANWR”, as the indus­try calls it – has long been the holy grail of pro-devel­op­ment Alas­ka politicians.

In its order Tues­day, the Inte­ri­or Depart­ment said the Trump regime’s hur­ry-up drilling lease pro­gram con­tained “mul­ti­ple legal defi­cien­cies” and did not con­sid­er the impact on cli­mate of oil drilling in the high Arctic.

Haa­land has ordered the depart­ment to con­duct “a new, com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis of the poten­tial envi­ron­men­tal impacts of the oil and gas program.”

A polar bear keeps close to her young along the Beau­fort Sea coast in Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Refuge. (Pho­to: Susanne Miller/USFWS)

The most elo­quent oppo­si­tion to Arc­tic Refuge drilling has long come from the Gwich’in natives of the iso­lat­ed town of Arc­tic Village.

The Gwich’ins depend on the Por­cu­pine herd, whose vast, cir­cu­lar counter-clock­wise migra­tion route ranges into two Cana­di­an nation­al parks.

“The Gwich’in Nation is grate­ful and heart­ened by the news that the Biden admin­is­tra­tion has act­ed again on its com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing sacred lands and the Gwich’in way of life,” the Gwich’ins said in a statement.

Pres­i­dent Biden promised dur­ing last year’s cam­paign that he would pro­tect the Refuge. Atti­tudes toward the coastal plain have reflect­ed par­ti­san leanings.

Ex-Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter and wife Ros­alynn have vis­it­ed the Refuge. The late U.S. Supreme Court Jus­tice William O. Dou­glas was among the first to cam­paign for pro­tec­tion of North Slope moun­tains and wetlands.

By con­trast, Bush II Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Gale Nor­ton described the coastal plain as “flat white noth­ing­ness.” Not a per­son with music in her soul.