When Congress in 2017 approved exploration and development opportunities in Alaska’s Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it marked an end to a 37-year struggle to open the plain.
Originally authorized by Congress in 1980, the plain holds a tremendous reserve that could enhance U.S. energy security for decades.Invoking climate change, the president canceled already-executed lease contracts with the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority for its seven tracts of land on the Coastal Plain.
Development of the wildlife refuge is strongly supported by Alaskans, including the Inupiat Eskimos living closest to — and even, in the case of the village of Kaktovik, inside the boundaries of — the Coastal Plain. Oil and gas creates not only hundreds of jobs for villagers across the North Slope of the state, but royalty payments to local government have also facilitated First World living conditions, a stark contrast to regions of Alaska without significant job opportunities.
But Mr. Biden’s handlers and advisers want him to be reelected in November 2024. They know that recent decisions to allow oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico and to reauthorize development of Alaska’s Willow Project have damaged his credibility among environmental activists, a segment of the voting populace he can’t afford to lose.
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