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arctic national wildlife refuge (anwr)
The Arctic Is the Last Frontier, Trump Could Make It the Lost Frontier
With Trump’s return to the Oval Office, fossil fuel giants will get another chance to turn this pristine wilderness into the country’s largest gas station.
Jan 10, 2025
I’ve guided trips to Alaska’s North Slope and Brooks Range Mountains for 31 years, and I always start out with the same speech: “You are headed to some real wild country.” Alaska’s Arctic is home to some of our most iconic landscapes. This is probably the wildest place left in the United States and some of the most remote country in North America. What you see there—and what you won’t see–are things you’ll never forget.
I had guided rafting trips for a number of years across the western U.S., but I was unprepared for the sheer scale of this country. At all points of the compass, nothing but tundra for days and a river filled with exotically beautiful aufeis–layer upon frozen layer of ice. I’ve seen caribou, wolves, bears–a muskox nearly trampled my tent. I’ve had the good fortune to return to this landscape every year and it still is as wild and free from development as ever–for now. But with the return of Donald Trump to the White House, that could soon change.
To stem the tide of species loss and to give our environment a fighting chance, we need to protect more lands and waters by the end of the decade than we did in the last century.
The Arctic as we currently know it is thanks to Jimmy Carter, who passed away last week at the age of 100. Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act created 16 wildlife refuges, 13 national parks, two national monuments, two national forests, two conservation areas, and 26 wild and scenic rivers, and designated 57 million acres of wilderness. Ironically, Carter’s funeral will happen the same day the Biden administration holds its final lease sale in the Arctic Refuge—the smallest version they could legally offer. It’s a fitting move from an administration that, unlike Carter, had a complicated approach to the Arctic.
The Western Arctic was the setting for one of President Biden’s worst climate decisions—the March 2023 approval of the Willow project. Instead of preserving these landscapes from extraction, the president seemed to extend a new and dark era for the Arctic that began with Trump’s approval of oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge in 2017.
But a lot can change in a few months, and the Biden administration seemingly shifted strategies in the Western Arctic from extraction to preservation. Beginning last summer, the White House advanced a slate of new protections to safeguard millions of acres of public lands from oil and gas drilling. This summer was my 31st leading people into the Brooks Range mountains and the tundra beyond to the north in those little planes, and as we flew over wild Alaskan landscapes, we saw no signs of human development—in part due to Biden’s actions. But oil and gas companies will soon have a new ally to turn to.
With Trump’s return to the Oval Office, those same companies will get another chance to turn this pristine wilderness into the country’s largest gas station. On the campaign trail, Trump made it clear he would “drill, baby, drill” and give those Big Oil CEOs free rein to drill wherever and whenever they could. Opening up the Arctic Refuge to drilling was one of the first actions the Republican trifecta took in 2017, and extending that law is one of their top priorities this time around. For Arctic communities, wildlife, and ecosystems, it’s the biggest threat in a generation.
We’re currently witnessing an extinction crisis driven by habitat destruction, and the key driver of habitat destruction is development. At the same time, the effects of the climate crisis are being exacerbated by development that destabilizes ecosystems and natural carbon absorption. To stem the tide of species loss and to give our environment a fighting chance, we need to protect more lands and waters by the end of the decade than we did in the last century. The Arctic survived four years of Trump, but it’s up to us to ensure it survives another four.
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The US Should Protect Polar Bears, Not Turn Their Home Into an Oil Field
On the 50th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, it’s time for us to speak up for these struggling bears and use the law to protect them.
Feb 22, 2024
Apparently the U.S. Congress thought it was okay to break treaty obligations when they passed a rider that mandated two oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Biden administration is being forced to hold a second lease sale this year.
This plot to industrialize the Arctic refuge threatens a population of 500 polar bears that wander along the Beaufort Sea shore and den on the coastal plain of our largest and wildest refuge. While they can’t speak to Congress, they certainly have rights and laws that should protect them.
In January, pregnant polar bears are curled up in dens that they have dug out in snowdrifts. Soon they will give birth to one or two cubs in the dark, icy cold of winter. The newborn bears are about the size of a guinea pig and weigh only a pound. They are helpless and dependent on their mothers who nurse them for about three months in the den. Sensitive to noise and disturbance, polar bear mothers will abandon their cubs if startled by industrial noises that are associated with seismic trains and drilling rigs. The cubs will not survive if their mothers leave the den.
Polar bears have the right to survive.
Since 2008, the Southern Beaufort Sea population of threatened polar bears has been protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Over the past two decades their population has decreased by 40% because of the continued loss of sea ice habitat that they need for survival. More and more bears are denning on land because of the unstable nature of ocean ice or absence of it. Polar bears might be the largest land carnivore, but they are also a victim of climate change, showing us the catastrophic effects of our emissions each and every day they try to survive on vanishing ice floes.
In 1973 five Arctic nations signed the Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears to ensure that polar bear populations remained strong and healthy. One of the provisions of this multilateral treaty is that all nations will protect critical denning habitat for polar bears. Never before has the North Slope of Alaska been more critical for denning habitat than it is now. The United States needs to honor this polar bear treaty and protect the coastal plain of the Arctic refuge, not turn it into an oil field. After all, it’s a refuge, and these bears are in serious long-term danger of extinction.
When the Arctic refuge was established in 1980, the purposes were clear: to conserve fish and wildlife populations and habitats in their natural diversity including, but not limited to, the Porcupine caribou herd, polar bears, grizzly bears, muskox, Dall sheep, wolves, wolverines, and an array of migratory birds. A second purpose requires that the Secretary of Interior fulfill international treaty obligations of the United States with respect to fish and wildlife, including polar bears, and their habitats. The opportunity for continued subsistence uses by residents is to be provided, along with ensuring water quality and quantity.
Secretary Deb Haaland and the Biden administration have a duty to honor the original purposes of the Arctic refuge, to fulfill the obligations of the polar bear treaty, and to protect Beaufort Sea polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. Polar bears are also protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
With three laws and an international treaty that protect polar bears, and the fact that some of the Beaufort Sea bears den in a wildlife refuge, one would think these animals are safe. But not so—not if the 2017 Tax Act leasing mandate is unrightfully prioritized over these bedrock environmental laws and a long-standing international agreement.
On the 50th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, it’s time for us to speak up for these struggling bears and use the law to protect them. We should elevate their status from “threatened” to “endangered.” Polar bears are as awesome as the American condor and as magnificent as the humpback whale. They are loved by children all over the world and featured in stories and movies. Companies have used them in flashy animated ads.
Polar bears have the right to survive. Their plight is as clear as melting ice. The least we can do is protect the sensitive region where they give birth in the Arctic refuge and do everything we can to lower our global emissions.
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Why Biden’s Arctic Protections Fall Short
The administration cannot pretend to fight climate change until it’s willing to actually address its leasing problem.
Sep 14, 2023
Last week, the Biden Administration announced measures to protect the Arctic, including new rules for special areas within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the cancellation of the last remaining Trump-issued oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As these areas are notorious for receiving inadequate protections, this announcement is a solid first step. However, we need to see greater and swifter safeguards if President Joe Biden wants to demonstrate that he’s the climate president he’s made himself out to be.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge holds major significance for communities and wildlife, and an increasing number of companies are publicly committing to rejecting projects in the refuge. Due to widespread local and Indigenous support over the past few years, 20 insurance companies have introduced policies to protect the refuge from oil and gas drilling. In addition, 29 global financial institutions have also introduced protective drilling policies. The leases canceled by Biden should never have been issued in the first place, and last week’s action was long overdue.
Furthermore, the proposed regulations regarding oil and gas drilling in NPR-Alaska don’t go as far as they might seem. In reality, these rules only protect specific parts of the Western Arctic that have never been subject to leases from the fossil fuel industry. The rules don’t address threats associated with development on the million acres of public land already leased to ConocoPhillips and other oil companies. The carbon-bomb Willow Project, for instance, is located on this reserve.
In 2023, BLM data confirmed that the president issued more oil and gas lease sales in his first two years in office than the entirety of Donald Trump’s term. How can President Biden project himself as a climate president with this kind of record?
When the administration determined the Willow Project would become reality, many called on the president to stop the project. From TikTok to Instagram, millions of young people shared their concerns about the project–which is predicted will add about 260 million metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere over the next 30 years, or the equivalent of an extra 2 million cars on the road per year. Yet, Biden’s Justice Department defended the Trump administration’s original approval of the project and eventually reapproved it in March 2023. Environmental groups across the spectrum, as well as the United Nations, were incredibly disappointed with the administration’s decision to move forward with the largest oil and gas extraction venture ever proposed on federal lands.
This announcement also doesn’t erase the Biden administration’s poor leasing record in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. During the 2020 presidential race, Biden pledged to end drilling on federal lands. Yet, once in office, his administration delayed review of the fossil fuel leasing program for months, and the final report was surprisingly silent on the climate crisis. In the same month, over 80 million acres of land in the Gulf of Mexico were offered up for oil and gas drilling. The Inflation Reduction Act, often touted as an unprecedented climate bill, reinstated canceled offshore lease sales and tied offshore wind sales to more oil and gas leasing. By 2022, the Center for Biological Diversity reviewed data from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that confirmed the Biden administration issued more permits to drill on federal lands than Trump’s. In 2023, BLM data confirmed that the president issued more oil and gas lease sales in his first two years in office than the entirety of Donald Trump’s term. How can President Biden project himself as a climate president with this kind of record?
Environmental groups have worked diligently to hold him accountable from the beginning. In January 2022, groups filed a legal petition calling on the Biden administration to use its executive authority to phase out oil and gas production on public lands and waters. In June 2022, another suit was filed regarding nearly 120,000 acres of land that were offered up for sale in Wyoming. In January 2023, over 300 community groups sent a letter to the Department of the Interior, laying out nine steps that should be taken to preserve public lands and help the president meet his climate commitments. Unfortunately, most of these efforts have been met with either dismissal or silence.
Luckily, there are still concrete steps the Biden administration can take to right the ship. It must commit to phase out drilling on public lands and waters by 2035 and establish guardrails on the current leasing program. It must listen to calls from Indigenous and environmental groups to develop a stronger framework for public land management. It must stop current drilling projects and halt issuing any new drilling permits until there is a proper analysis of potential climate damage in affected regions. Finally, the Interior Department must release a Five-Year Program with no new leases.
The Biden administration cannot pretend to fight climate change until it’s willing to actually address its leasing problem. Fossil fuels cause global warming, and the president can’t continue to conveniently ignore this fact. Reducing oil production on public lands in the U.S. would lead to a global reduction in oil production. If Biden continues to ignore what’s right in front of him, our chances of a livable world will continue to shrink. It’s up to the administration to honor its commitment to end oil and gas leasing nationwide, as well as dismantle climate bomb projects like Willow so substantive, popular climate policies can see the light of day.
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