Biden Suspends Drilling Leases in Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge
The decision blocks, for now, oil and gas drilling in
one of the largest tracts of undeveloped wilderness in the United States.
By Coral
Davenport, Henry Fountain and Lisa Friedman
June 1,
2021
WASHINGTON
— The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil drilling leases in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, unspooling a signature achievement of the
Trump presidency and delivering on a promise by President Biden to protect the
fragile Alaskan tundra from fossil fuel extraction.
The
decision sets up a process that could halt drilling in one of the largest
tracts of untouched wilderness in the United States, home to migrating
waterfowl, caribou and polar bears. But it also lies over as much as 11 billion
barrels of oil and Democrats and Republicans have fought over whether to allow
drilling there for more than four decades.
A formal
order from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland paused the leases until her agency
has completed an environmental analysis of their impact and a legal review of
the Trump administration’s decision to grant them.
While the
move follows President Biden’s Inauguration Day executive order to halt new
Arctic drilling, it also serves as a high-profile way for the president to
solidify his environmental credentials after coming under fire from activists
angered by his recent quiet support for some fossil fuel projects.
“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 the
character of this special place forever,” said Gina McCarthy, the White House
domestic climate policy adviser.
Environmentalists
have criticized moves by the White House last month to legally defend a major
drilling project elsewhere in Alaska, to pass on an opportunity to block the
contentious Dakota Access oil pipeline, and to support a Trump-era decision to
grant oil and gas leases on public land in Wyoming.
“Suspending
leases in the Arctic Refuge is a major step forward in keeping President
Biden’s campaign promise and cutting carbon pollution,” said Gene Karpinski,
president of the League of Conservation Voters. “Going forward, we also need to
ensure the administration keeps its climate commitment across the board. A
‘drill here, don’t drill there’ approach will not get the job done.”
But Alaskan
elected officials were livid.
Senator
Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, said in a statement that the suspension of leases
was contrary to federal law because the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed
by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2017 directed the interior secretary
to create the leasing program. “Neither the president nor the secretary are
given the discretion to decide otherwise,” she said.
Gov. Mike
Dunleavy, also a Republican, called the move an “assault on Alaska’s economy”
and pledged to “use every means necessary to undo this egregious federal
overreach.”
“Alaska
does responsible oil and gas development in the Arctic under stricter
environmental standards than anywhere else in the world,” Governor Dunleavy
said. “Yet the federal government is focused on trying to stop our ability to
produce oil and gas. Each action they take demonstrates a failure to comprehend
the worldwide demand for oil and gas.”
Last month,
the world’s leading energy agency warned that governments around the globe must
stop approving fossil fuel projects now if they want to prevent the pollution
they produce from driving average global temperatures above 2 degrees Celsius
compared with preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which
scientists say the Earth will experience irreversible damage.
Experts
observed that the timing of the announcement to suspend the drilling leases in
the refuge, coming on the heels of the fossil-fuel friendly actions by the
administration, could be designed to appease Mr. Biden’s environmental critics.
“This will
help solidify the president’s bona fides in opposing major new fossil fuel
projects,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate
Change Law at the Columbia Law School. “He doesn’t have a 100 percent clean
record on this. This is certainly a step that the environmental community will
smile on, coming at this moment, in view of the recent actions that
environmentalists didn’t like.”
Still, the
suspension of the leases alone does not guarantee that drilling will be blocked
in the Arctic refuge. The administration has only committed to reviewing the Trump
leases, not canceling them. If it determines that the leases were granted
illegally, it could then have legal grounds to cancel them.
“I wouldn’t
say that it halts it but it slows it down considerably,” Mr. Gerrard said.
“People knew that it was vulnerable and that they couldn’t count on the Trump
leases sticking. At a minimum it’s a blinking yellow light for potential
developers and investors.”
Conservative
groups contend that Mr. Biden’s suspension of the leases may be illegal. “The
government cannot enter into a contract to take over $14 million and then
invalidate the contract without cause,” said Devin Watkins, an attorney for the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, an organization that worked with the Trump
administration in its efforts to roll back environmental protections. “No cause
for canceling the ANWR leases has been provided.”
Policy
experts also noted that any moves by Mr. Biden to block Arctic drilling could
be undone by a future administration.
“Since the
Carter administration, whether ANWR can be leased is determined by which party
is in the White House,” said Marcella Burke, an energy policy lawyer who served
in the Interior Department during the Trump administration. “Developers in ANWR
assume there will be a policy shift between Democrat and Republican
administrations. But it’s not permanent, assuming there will someday be another
party in the White House.”
Environmental
groups applauded the move but called for a permanent ban on Arctic drilling.
“Until the
leases are canceled, they will remain a threat to one of the wildest places
left in America,” said Kristen Miller, acting director of the Alaska Wilderness
League. “Now we look to the administration and Congress to prioritize
legislatively repealing the oil leasing mandate and restore protections to the
Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain.”
The refuge,
19 million acres in the northeastern part of the state, had long been off
limits to oil and gas development, with Democrats, environmentalists and some
Alaska Native groups successfully fighting efforts to open it.
But
President Donald J. Trump made opening a portion of it, about 1.5 million acres
along Prudhoe Bay that is known as the Coastal Plain, a centerpiece of his push
to develop more domestic fossil fuel production.
In 2017,
the Congress included language in a tax
bill establishing a leasing program as a way of generating revenue for the
federal government. But an environmental review, required under federal law,
was only completed last year.
Environmental
groups and others immediately sued the Trump administration, saying the review
was faulty. For one thing, they said, the analysis discounted the impact of oil
and gas production on climate change.
While the
issue remained in the courts, the Trump administration went ahead with a lease
sale in early January, just weeks before Mr. Trump left office.
There had
been little interest in the leases, at least publicly, from major oil
companies, given the high cost of producing oil in the Arctic, the growing
desire to reduce fossil fuel use, and the reputational risks of drilling in such
a pristine area. After pressure from environmental organizations and Native
groups, major banks had pledged not to finance any drilling efforts in the
refuge.
The
apparent lack of interest was borne out in the sale. Only two small companies
made bids to acquire 10-year rights to explore and drill for oil on two tracts
totaling about 75,000 acres.
A
state-owned economic development corporation in Alaska, offering the minimum of
$25 an acre, was the sole bidder on the other tracts, totaling about half a million
acres. That raised legal issues, including whether the state had standing to
purchase leases, that have not been resolved.
Neither
company could be reached for comment.
In a
statement, Alan Weitzner, executive director of the state corporation, the
Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, said the Biden
administration had yet to provide documentation “of any deficiencies that would
warrant a suspension of leases.”
“We’re
extremely disappointed in the Biden Administration’s effort to prevent Alaska
from lawfully and responsibly developing its natural resources,” Mr. Weitzner
said.
Ms. Miller,
acting executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, one of the groups
that had sued the Trump administration, said the leasing program and resulting
sale were the result of a “flawed and legally deficient process.”
The move
comes as the Biden administration weathers criticism for recent decisions to
either support or fail to block major oil and gas drilling projects.
Two weeks
ago, Ms. Haaland called Ms. Murkowski and the rest of Alaska’s congressional
delegation to inform them she would approve of a multibillion dollar
ConocoPhillips oil drilling project in the National Petroleum Reserve. The
project, which Ms. Haaland opposed when she served in Congress, is expected to
produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day for 30 years, locking in decades
of new fossil fuel development.
Also last
month, Mr. Biden opposed in court shutting down the bitterly-contested Dakota
Access pipeline, which is carrying about 550,000 barrels of oil daily from
North Dakota to Illinois. It also could have decided to halt the pipeline while
the Army Corps of Engineers conducts a new court-ordered environmental review,
but it opted not to intervene.
And in
Wyoming, the Biden administration defended 440 oil and gas leases issued by the
Trump administration on federal land that is also the critical habitat of the
sage grouse, mule deer and pronghorn.
Coral
Davenport covers energy and environmental policy for the climate desk from
Washington. She was part of the Times team that received Columbia University’s
John B. Oakes award for distinguished environmental journalism in 2018.
@CoralMDavenport • Facebook
Henry
Fountain specializes in the science of climate change and its impacts. He has
been writing about science for The Times for more than 20 years and has
traveled to the Arctic and Antarctica. @henryfountain • Facebook
Lisa
Friedman reports on federal climate and environmental policy from Washington.
She has broken multiple stories about the Trump administration’s efforts to
repeal climate change regulations and limit the use of science in policymaking.
@LFFriedman
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário