The Biden administration said Wednesday it will prohibit oil and gas drilling on millions of acres in Alaska’s North Slope and revoke seven Trump-era oil and gas leases in the area, as part of the administration's effort to expand federal land protections, even in an energy-rich environment.
The Department of the Interior said in a press release that the actions will permanently ban oil and gas drilling on more than 10.6 million acres in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, ensuring "maximum protection" for more than 40% of the reserve, which is located in Alaska's North Slope and is the largest undisturbed public land in the U.S.
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Alaska is full of “breathtaking natural wonders” that need protection, President Joe Biden said Wednesday in a statement announcing the new protections.
“As the climate crisis warms the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, we have a responsibility to protect this treasured region for all ages,” he said.
Separately, the Interior Department announced Wednesday that it will cancel seven oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge the Trump administration had leased for exploration to Alaska’s state-owned oil development agency, citing results from a new environmental review that determined the original analysis was “seriously flawed" and not legally adequate.
“With today’s action, no one will have rights to drill for oil in one of the most sensitive landscapes on Earth,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told reporters.
“Public lands belong to all Americans, and there are some places where oil and gas drilling and industrial development simply do not belong," she added.
The announcements were met with praise from environmental groups who had pushed for more conservation in the area. “We commend Secretary Haaland for canceling unlawfully issued oil-and-gas leases in the Arctic Refuge,” Abigail Dillen, president of environmental group Earthjustice, said in a statement.
Importantly, the new actions will not halt activity on the Willow Project — ConocoPhillips’s massive, 600-million-barrel drilling project approved by Interior in March.
Interior's approval of Willow was met with outrage from environmental groups, who accused Biden of reneging on his climate protection promises, directly contradicting his campaign trail pledge that as president, there would be “no more drilling on federal lands, period.
"Biden has no excuse for letting this project go forward in any form. New Arctic drilling makes no sense, and we’ll fight hard to keep ConocoPhillips from breaking ground," Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in response to the Willow announcement.
Wednesday's new land protections come as Biden has tried to appease both environmental groups and oil and gas producers as he seeks to balance his climate goals with issues of energy security following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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The decision represents a departure from Biden's stance last summer when he repeatedly urged oil refiners and producers to take “immediate actions” to ramp up supply and sought to pass on blame for the historic-high gas prices.
“I am prepared to use all tools at my disposal, as appropriate, to address barriers to providing Americans affordable, secure energy supply," Biden said last June.