Protesters hold signs at a protest inside JP Morgan Chase headquarters in Manhattan on Nov. 20. As Goldman Sachs divests from Arctic Oil explorations, Rainforest Action Network says the move shows other Big Banks like JP Morgan Chase can too. Erik McGregor / LightRocket / Getty Images
Goldman Sachs, one of the world's largest investment banks, gave a minor victory to the divestment movement by declaring that it will not fund an new arctic oil explorations, as CNN reported.
<p>Citing the importance of the Arctic's fragile ecosystem and its importance to indigenous populations, the investing giant said it will decline investing in any oil exploration in the Arctic, including the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Arctic-National-Wildlife-Refuge" rel="noopener noreferrer">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</a>.</p>
<p>"Oil development in the Arctic Circle is prone to harsh operating conditions, sea ice, permafrost coverage, and potential impacts to critical natural habitats for endangered species," Goldman Sachs said in its <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/s/environmental-policy-framework/#climateChangeGuidelines" target="_blank">Environmental Policy Framework</a>. "The unique and fragile ecosystems of the Arctic region also support the subsistence livelihoods of indigenous peoples groups that have populated certain areas in the region for centuries."</p>
<p>Goldman Sachs also said in its <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/s/environmental-policy-framework/#climateChangeGuidelines" target="_blank">policy framework</a> that it would not finance any new thermal coal mines or any <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/mountaintop-removal" rel="noopener noreferrer">mountaintop removal</a> projects. It added that where it has already invested, it would work with companies to diversify their strategies and reduce their carbon emissions. </p>
<p>"Companies' diversification strategy and carbon emissions reduction initiatives will be a key consideration in our evaluation of future financings with the goal of helping their transition strategy," the <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/s/environmental-policy-framework/#climateChangeGuidelines" target="_blank">Environmental Policy Framework</a> says. "We will phase out our financing of thermal coal mining companies that do not have a diversification strategy within a reasonable timeframe."</p>
<p>Goldman Sachs follows a dozen <a href="https://www.banktrack.org/campaign/banks_that_ended_direct_finance_for_arctic_oil_andor_gas_projects#_" target="_blank">global banks</a>, based largely in Europe and Australia, that pledged not to finance Arctic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil-and-gas">oil and gas</a> development in the arctic. Several of the policies mention Arctic National Wildlife Refuge specifically, as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/02/775439649/as-climate-warnings-grow-dire-energy-companies-face-a-new-frontier-of-threats" target="_blank">NPR</a> reported. Goldman is the first U.S. headquartered bank to make the same promise, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/16/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p>
<p>"Goldman Sachs's updated policy shows that US banks can draw red lines on oil and gas, and now other major US banks, especially JPMorgan Chase – the world's worst banker of fossil fuels by a wide margin – must improve on what Goldman has done," said Jason Opeña Disterhoft, a climate and energy campaigner at Rainforest Action Network, <a href="https://www.ran.org/press-releases/goldman-sachs-adopts-fossil-finance-policy/" target="_blank">which helped to lobby for the change</a>, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/16/goldman-sachs-to-stop-financing-new-drilling-for-oil-in-the-arctic" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p>
<p>The move did win praise from environmental activists, including the Sierra Club, though it did not extend to fracking, which environmentalists had campaigned for. Nevertheless, the Sierra Club, which had lobbied Goldman Sachs to stop funding Arctic exploration, praised the bank's pledge. </p>
<p>"The Trump administration may not care about ignoring the will of the American people or trampling Indigenous rights, but a growing number of major financial institutions are making it clear that they do," said Ben Cushing, a Sierra Club campaign representative, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/16/goldman-sachs-to-stop-financing-new-drilling-for-oil-in-the-arctic" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported. "We hope other American banks will follow their lead."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BREAKING: <a href="https://twitter.com/GoldmanSachs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GoldmanSachs</a> just became the first major American bank to prohibit financing for new Arctic oil, thermal coal mining, and coal power projects worldwide! 👏👏 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DefundClimateChange?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DefundClimateChange</a> <a href="https://t.co/y023bKh2Gr">https://t.co/y023bKh2Gr</a></p>— Ben Cushing (@bmcushing) <a href="https://twitter.com/bmcushing/status/1206310459902758913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 15, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><p>The divestment movement scored another large victory last week when insurance giant Liberty Mutual announced new policies that will see the company move away from protecting the coal industry. Liberty Mutual became the 18th global insurance company to put tighter restrictions on underwriting coal, according to the trade publication <a href="https://www.propertycasualty360.com/2019/12/16/liberty-mutual-announces-restrictions-to-coal-coverage-and-investing/?slreturn=20191116092313" target="_blank">Property Casualty 360</a>.</p><p>Liberty Mutual said it will no longer underwrite risk for companies where more than a quarter of their risk comes from coal, nor will it invest in the stock of companies that have more than 25 percent of their portfolio in coal, and it will phase out its coverage and its investments in any country that does not meet that threshold, according to a company <a href="https://www.libertymutualgroup.com/about-lm/news/articles/liberty-mutual-insurance-appoints-first-chief-sustainability-officer-oversee-continued-development-environmental-social-and-governance-agenda" target="_blank">statement</a>. </p><p>"We are committed to being a responsible global corporate citizen with a focus on environmental sustainability, supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy and investing in companies that show proven progress in this evolution," said Francis Hyatt, the company's newly appointed Chief Sustainability Officer, in the <a href="https://www.libertymutualgroup.com/about-lm/news/articles/liberty-mutual-insurance-appoints-first-chief-sustainability-officer-oversee-continued-development-environmental-social-and-governance-agenda" target="_blank">statement</a>. "We understand the shift from coal to clean energy is a journey and we recognize the role the insurance industry plays in supporting that evolution for our customers.</p><p>Activists welcomed the commitment from Liberty Mutual, but worried about the loopholes it created for itself. </p><p>"While Liberty Mutual's new policy sets out strong restrictions on insuring coal companies, it apparently does not rule out covering new coal-fired power plants or coal mines from companies with less than a 25 per cent stake in coal," said Elana Sulkshana, Rainforest Action Network's energy finance campaigner, in a statement, as <a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3084685/insurer-liberty-mutual-halts-underwriting-for-coal-firms" target="_blank">Business Green</a> reported. "This is a major loophole because, to keep warming below 1.5C, the science is clear that the climate cannot withstand any new coal projects."</p><p>"Liberty Mutual must strengthen its policy to clearly rule out insuring any new coal mines or power plants, fully phase out coal across all insurance and investment activities in line with 1.5 C, and stop insuring the destructive tar sands sector," she added.</p>
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Polar bear cub in the snow at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. P. de Graaf / Moment / Getty Images
The Trump administration has asserted that "there is not a climate crisis" as justification for expanding drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
<p>E&E first reported Monday that the Bureau of Land Management's Environmental Impact Statement for expanded drilling in Alaska, released last month, contains stark denier language tucked into the vast appendix, where BLM staff attorney Brook Brisson responds to public criticisms of the proposal. Brisson asserts in response to a comment asking BLM to acknowledge that drilling "is inconsistent with maintaining a livable planet" that "societies prospered" in previous warm periods in Earth's history. </p><p>In July, Politico published <a href="https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=46a3e3e1b8&e=0afd421a28" target="_blank">an extensive report</a> detailing the exhaustive and political edits to and deletions of scientific work in the statement.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="c2a82" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="DUTA661576661380"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1177247901279576074" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The administration says it doesn't have to worry about #climatechange impacts from drilling in our Arctic National… https://t.co/YayHIArlH9</div> — Natural Resources Committee (@Natural Resources Committee)<a href="https://twitter.com/NRDems/statuses/1177247901279576074">1569512746.0</a></blockquote></div>
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<p>The Politico report explains the pristine wilderness at the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee:</p><blockquote>For decades, the refuge has been the subject of a very public tug of war between pro-drilling forces and conservation advocates determined to protect an ecosystem crucial to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/polar-bears" rel="noopener noreferrer">polar bears</a>, herds of migratory caribou, and native communities that rely on the wildlife for subsistence hunting. The Trump tax law, for the first time since the refuge was established in 1980, handed the advantage decisively to the drillers.</blockquote><blockquote><strong></strong></blockquote><p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><a href="https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=337c38f3c7&e=0afd421a28" target="_blank">E&E</a> $, <a href="https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=a2f3f98a12&e=0afd421a28" target="_blank">The Hill</a></p>
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- Trump Administration Drills Down on Alaska's Arctic Refuge ... ›
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EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Trump Moves to Open 1.5 Million Acres of Alaskan Refuge for Oil Drilling By End of the Year
14 September 2019
Energy
An image of the trans-alaskan oil pipeline that carries oil from the northern part of Alaska all the way to valdez. This shot is right near the arctic national wildlife refuge. kyletperry / iStock / Getty Images Plus
The Trump administration has initialized the final steps to open up nearly 1.6 million acres of the protected Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to allow oil and gas drilling.
<p>The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued its final <a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/102555/20003762/250004418/Volume_1_ExecSummary_Ch1-3_References_Glossary.pdf" target="_blank">Environmental Impact Statement</a> for the refuge and found that it was acceptable to lease 1.56 million acres on the Alaskan coastal plains. The lease sales will go forward by the end of the year, as <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/461161-trump-administration-to-open-alaskan-wildlife-refuge-to-drilling-by" target="_blank">The Hill</a> reported.</p>
<p>Now that the Environmental Impact Statement has been written, BLM is constrained by a mandatory 30-day waiting period before it can accept bids from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" rel="noopener noreferrer">fossil fuel</a> companies.</p><p>"After rigorous review, robust public comment, and a consideration of a range of alternatives, today's announcement is a big step to carry out the clear mandate we received from Congress to develop and implement a leasing program for the Coastal Plain, a program the people of Alaska have been seeking for over 40 years," said Interior Sec. David Bernhardt in a statement, as <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/461161-trump-administration-to-open-alaskan-wildlife-refuge-to-drilling-by" target="_blank">The Hill</a> reported.</p><p>The Democratic controlled house passed a bill Thursday to stop the mandate, but it has little chance of making it through the Senate.</p><p>"There are some places too wild, too important, too unique to be spoiled by oil-and-gas development," said Rep. Jared Huffman, the California Democrat who wrote the bill, as the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-drilling-in-alaskas-arctic-wildlife-refuge-to-have-negligible-impact-interior-department-says-11568319433" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a> reported. "The Arctic Refuge's Coastal Plain is one of those special places."</p>
<p>Environmentalists were quick to pounce on the Interior Department announcement since the refuge is home to polar bear dens and it is where caribou visit for calving. Drilling operations will almost certainly displace indigenous populations, which rely on the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> for their sustenance through hunting and fishing, according to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/12/trump-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil-gas-drilling" target="_blank">Guardian</a>.</p><p>"This sham 'review' unlawfully opens the entire coastal plain to leasing and fails to minimize damage to this unique environment," said Garett Rose, staff attorney for the Alaska Project at the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a> (NRDC), in a statement, according to <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/461161-trump-administration-to-open-alaskan-wildlife-refuge-to-drilling-by" target="_blank">The Hill</a>. "It violates what is sacred ground to, and a source of subsistence for, the Gwich'in people."</p><p>The Alaska Wilderness League's Executive Director Adam Kolton said to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/12/trump-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil-gas-drilling" target="_blank">Guardian</a> "to no one's surprise, the administration chose the most aggressive leasing alternative, not even pretending that this is about restraint or meaningful protection."</p><p>"With an eye on developing the entirety of the fragile coastal plain, the administration has been riding roughshod over science, silencing dissent and shutting out entire Indigenous communities," said Kolton.</p><p>The NRDC plans to challenge the <a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/102555/20003762/250004418/Volume_1_ExecSummary_Ch1-3_References_Glossary.pdf" target="_blank">Environmental Impact Statement</a> in court.</p><p>"We will indeed sue," the NRDC's Anne Hawke said, according to the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-drilling-in-alaskas-arctic-wildlife-refuge-to-have-negligible-impact-interior-department-says-11568319433" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a>.</p><p>The <a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/102555/20003762/250004418/Volume_1_ExecSummary_Ch1-3_References_Glossary.pdf" target="_blank">Environmental Impact Statement</a> does seem, at times, divorced from reality, as it suggests that global heating is cyclical rather than a byproduct of human activity, which is the scientific consensus.</p><p>"Much attention in recent decades has focused on the potential climate change effects of GHGs [greenhouse gasses], especially carbon dioxide (CO2), which has been increasing in concentration in the global atmosphere since the end of the last ice age," the document reads, as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/12/trump-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil-gas-drilling" target="_blank">Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>The BLM estimated that the oil and gas leases in the Alaskan refuge would emit the greenhouse gas equivalent of one million new cars on the road. However, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed a draft statement, it said that BLM drastically underestimated the environmental impact, as <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/federal-agencies-disagree-on-environmental-impacts-of-drilling-in-alaska/" target="_blank">Scientific American</a> reported.</p><p>"The majority of Americans want this sacred area protected," said Rose, as <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/461161-trump-administration-to-open-alaskan-wildlife-refuge-to-drilling-by" target="_blank">The Hill</a> reported. "And within hours of Congress taking action, the Trump administration is moving with haste to destroy it."</p>
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Caribou grazing on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. USFWS
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a bill on Monday would block oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) aim to repeal a little-known Arctic drilling provision that was quietly snuck into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
<p>
The new bill—called the "Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act"—states that "oil and gas activities are not compatible with the protection of this national treasure." <span></span>
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="27310" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="88M7EQ1576662558"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1095038994277117952" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Thank you @RepHuffman @RepLowenthal @RepBrianFitz for introducing the "Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection… https://t.co/o8mZBX0bDa</div> — Alaska Wilderness League Action (@Alaska Wilderness League Action)<a href="https://twitter.com/AlaskaWildAct/statuses/1095038994277117952">1549912615.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Inclusion of the drilling measure in the 2017 tax bill helped Republicans secure the vote of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-drilling-alaska-murkowski-2508047461.html" target="_self">Sen. Lisa Murkowski</a> of Alaska, who has long sought to open part of ANWR for oil and gas development.
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Even though <a href="http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/americans-oppose-drilling-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/?utm_source=Yale+Program+on+Climate+Change+Communication&utm_campaign=2418476467-20171204_anwr&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_de6cdfce82-2418476467-326520565" target="_blank">the majority of voters</a> across the political spectrum oppose ANWR exploitation and the area was kept off-limits <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/obama-seeks-wilderness-designation-for-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-1882002415.html" target="_self">thanks to Obama-era policies</a>, the tax law, which passed with only GOP support, allowed drilling for the first time the refuge's coastal plain.
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</p><div id="702f4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="I2PA9R1576662558"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1095022133300862980" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">.@RepHuffman announces introduction of the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act, bipartisan legislation… https://t.co/dUBsxypXDy</div> — Sierra Club Live (@Sierra Club Live)<a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClubLive/statuses/1095022133300862980">1549908595.0</a></blockquote></div>
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The 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, also known as the 1002 Area, is believed to hold a vast and untapped trove of oil. Debate over opening the area for fossil fuel exploration has been at the center of political debate for decades.
</p><p>
Environmentalists worry that drilling would harm native wildlife. An <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2017/12/11/443964/measuring-loss-american-wildlife-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-drilled/" target="_blank">analysis</a> from the <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/" target="_blank">Center for American Progress</a> and <a href="http://www.csp-inc.org/" target="_blank">Conservation Science Partners</a> describes the coastal plain as the "biological heart" of the Arctic refuge that hosts one-third of all polar bear denning habitat in the U.S. and one-third of the migratory birds that come to the Arctic Refuge.
</p><p>
Fossil fuel development would also further stress a region that's already impacted by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-refuge-drilling-2517635533.html" target="_self">climate change</a>.
</p><p>
<span></span>"The Arctic is being impacted by climate change at unprecedented levels," the bill states. "Temperatures are rising at twice the rate of the rest of the country, and wildlife and habitat that depend on the Arctic are being detrimentally impacted."
</p><p>
The area is also considered sacred to the indigenous Gwich'in people, who sustain themselves from the caribou that migrate there.
</p><p>
Repealing the drilling provision in the tax law "would best protect the unspoiled ecosystem of the Coastal Plain, the human rights of the Gwich'in, and the integrity of the National Wildlife Refuge System," the bill states.
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTE4NDk5OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMTU3NDIzNH0.yp8QKgzcERceRE1yM8aRtUruOoU8K1ZeGo23pmCHPpM/img.jpg?width=980" id="9d02c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7fd118f028a5937605b039a0bb9c8d04" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Northern Alaska National Wildlife Range (ANWR), Coastal Plain 1002 Area</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit..."><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eiagov/" target="_blank" title="Go to U.S. Energy Information Administration's photostream">USEIA</a></small>
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Last year, the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/trump" target="_self">Trump</a> administration <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-oil-drilling-trump-2615086605.html" target="_self">approved the first</a> offshore oil drilling development in federal Arctic waters even though rising global temperatures have <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-climate-change-2539897203.html">dramatically reduced</a> the extent of sea ice.
</p><p>
Case in point, <a href="http://www.hilcorp.com/" target="_blank">Hilcorp Alaska</a>'s <a href="http://libertyenergyproject.com/faq/" target="_blank">Liberty Energy Project</a>—which involves building a 9-acre artificial drilling island in the shallow waters of the Beaufort Sea—was delayed because <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/oil-arctic-offshore-drilling-2619918075.html?share_id=4170830" target="_blank">there was not enough sea ice</a> to build a foundation for the artificial island.
</p><p>
The <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/home" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a> praised the new bill and noted that even major financial institutions, including Barclays, National Australia Bank, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-strategy-fossil-fuels/hsbc-to-stop-financing-most-new-coal-plants-oil-sands-arctic-drilling-idUSKBN1HR1NR" target="_blank">HSBC</a>, <a href="https://www.upi.com/BNP-Paribas-says-it-will-no-longer-back-oil/4921507715402/" target="_blank">BNP Paribas,</a> <a href="https://www.scotsman.com/news/rbs-bans-funding-of-arctic-oil-and-coal-projects-1-4746517" target="_blank">Royal Bank of Scotland</a> and <a href="https://www.societegenerale.com/en/measuring-our-performance/csr/environment" target="_blank">Societe General</a> are rejecting financing for drilling or exploration in the Arctic refuge.
</p><p>
"Drilling in the Arctic Refuge would threaten the food security and human rights of the Gwich'in people and permanently destroy one of the world's last wild places, all to dig up more oil that would worsen the climate crisis," Sierra Club lands protection program director Athan Manuel said in a <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2019/02/legislation-would-block-destructive-arctic-refuge-drilling" target="_blank">press release</a>. "That's why the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose drilling there, as do a growing number of investors and financial institutions."
</p><p>
Manuel added, "Now Congress has a chance to undo the dangerous and short-sighted decision to sell off this special place to corporate polluters. We applaud Representative Huffman and the bill's co-sponsors for their leadership in protecting America's Refuge."
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</p><div id="15b88" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="QBT5Z31576662559"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1088164551835684864" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#Arctic Refuge Oil Surveys Put #PolarBears in the Crosshairs https://t.co/mhJ6QlwAo0 @CenterForBioDiv @SavetheArctic</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/1088164551835684864">1548273620.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Steve Hillebrand / USFWS
By Tim Lydon
The Trump administration is barreling ahead with plans to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the largest refuge in the country and an area of global ecological importance.
<p>Many refer to the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge—the very place where oil drilling is being planned—as the "American Serengeti." A home for grizzly bears, wolves, musk oxen and a host of other species, the area is famous as the birthing ground for the enormous <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=1db433027dd94a928c39b9ab0f2d1b47" target="_blank">Porcupine caribou herd</a>, which each spring floods across the refuge's coastal plain in the tens of thousands, arriving in time to raise newborn calves amid fresh tundra grasses. The coastal plain is also the annual destination for millions of migrating <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/birds.html" target="_blank">birds</a>, who come from nearly every continent on Earth to raise the next generation of swans, terns and more than 200 other species. In late summer these avian visitors disperse to backyards, beaches and wetlands across the planet.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTE0NTM3Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5NzM4NTM3Nn0.XWArTH02zqwOECn6M4Y5npV2dpCflD80ZePo5mUYRt0/img.jpg?width=980" id="70981" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="46b45fedcda97d0b5a0a7344cfb3d2ff" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Steve Hillebrand / USFWS</small></p><p>Drilling on the Arctic Refuge has long been <a href="http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/americans-oppose-drilling-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/" target="_blank">opposed</a> by most Americans. Among the staunchest opponents of drilling are indigenous people in northern Alaska and the Canadian Arctic, whose cultures and diets are entwined with the Porcupine herd. They include the Gwich'in people of northern Alaska, who have lived in the Arctic for millennia and reside alongside the Arctic Refuge. Their name for the coastal plain is <a href="http://ourarcticrefuge.org/about-the-refuge/the-coastal-plain-the-sacred-place-where-life-begins/" target="_blank"><em>Iizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit</em>,</a> or "the Sacred Place Where Life Begins," a name reflecting the shared destiny of the caribou and the people. For the Gwich'in and others, fighting against drilling is a cultural imperative and a civil-rights issue.<br></p><p>The refuge has another cultural relevance: It's a unique part of American conservation history. President Dwight Eisenhower's 1960 protection of the area followed decades of research and advocacy by some of the tallest figures in American conservation, including <a href="https://www.wilderness.net/nwps/murie" target="_blank">Mardy and Olaus Murie</a>, <a href="https://www.wilderness.net/nwps/Marshall" target="_blank">Bob Marshall</a> and Supreme Court Justice <a href="https://www.wilderness.net/nwps/douglas" target="_blank">William O. Douglas</a>, among many others. These proponents held that the northeastern corner of Alaska should remain as one of America's <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/legacy.html" target="_blank">last truly wild places</a>, to benefit future generations and the land itself. Informed by the predator-prey research of Olaus Murie and disappointed by a trend toward development in the national parks, advocates pressed for a version of preservation that excluded roads, facilities and interference with predators or other natural ecological forces. They wanted to preserve wilderness.</p><p>When Eisenhower's <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/plo2214.html" target="_blank">order</a> protected the area's "unique wildlife, wilderness and recreational values," it marked the first time federal law specifically protected a thing called wilderness. As Roger Kaye describes in his book <em>The Last Great Wilderness</em>, the move was a precursor to the 1964 Wilderness Act, which the Muries also helped shape and which remains among our bedrock conservation laws. Later, in 1980, Congress <a href="https://www.nps.gov/locations/alaska/anilca.htm" target="_blank">affirmed</a> the national significance of the Arctic Refuge by nearly doubling its size.</p><p>But to the current administration and its loyal allies in Congress, the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge is destined to be an industrial oilfield. Caribou, birds, native people and history be damned—to say nothing of the climate, which needs another industrial oilfield about as much as Donald Trump needs another criminal investigation into his presidency.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
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<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit..."> USFWS</small></p><p>We arrived at this pivotal moment after Republicans, following decades of failed attempts, used the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1/text" target="_blank">2017 tax law</a> to pry open Arctic Refuge protections. Led by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, they tacked a provision onto the law's last page, in Section 20001, mandating drilling on the area's coastal plain. The law even amended the refuge's <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev2_037581.pdf" target="_blank">enabling legislation</a> to include oil drilling as a purpose of the refuge. Absurdly, drilling for oil now stands alongside other refuge purposes such as maintaining environmental health, conserving wildlife and protecting the wilderness values Eisenhower singled out back in 1960.<br></p><p>The law also prescribed a strict timetable for drilling. It orders the government to offer a minimum of two massive lease sales in the next 10 years, with the first to be completed by 2021. Each must encompass at least 400,000 acres of the coastal plain and include rights-of-way for a tangle of pipelines, roads, airstrips and other infrastructure, all certain to harm the natural values of the refuge.</p><p>Designing those lease sales is the focus of the government's work today. The process began with an initial public comment period last spring, which garnered nearly <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2018/06/hundreds-thousands-public-comments-urge-zinke-protect-arctic-refuge" target="_blank">700,000</a> responses that overwhelmingly opposed drilling. We are now in the <a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/plans-in-development/alaska/coastal-plain-eis" target="_blank">second comment period</a>, which quietly opened during the holidays and was originally scheduled to close on Feb. 11—a period mostly characterized by President Trump's 35-day <a href="https://therevelator.org/shutdown-oil-gas/" target="_blank">government shutdown</a>. The purpose of the comment period is to gather input on an array of generally weak environmental restrictions proposed to govern the lease sales the administration hopes to offer this year. It's all part of a fast-tracked attempt to transfer large swaths of the coastal plain into oil-industry hands before the 2020 election.</p><p>Comments have now been extended through March 13, but the shutdown also resulted in the Interior Department postponing a series of public meetings, which would have enabled people to learn more about the sales. Those meetings are now <a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/eplanning/planAndProjectSite.do?methodName=dispatchToPatternPage&currentPageId=152113" target="_blank">scheduled to take place</a> this week.</p><p>Still, comments were accepted throughout the shutdown. Based on published media reports we know they already include recent <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/canada-first-nations-concern-us-arctic-drilling-1.4976686" target="_blank">objections</a> from the Canadian government, the governments of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, and several Canadian First Nations groups, who all agree drilling on the coastal plain <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/corporate/international-affairs/partnerships-countries-regions/north-america/canada-united-states-porcupine-caribou-conservation.html" target="_blank">violates international agreements</a> to protect the Porcupine caribou.</p><p>Meanwhile the government is expected to invite more public comment soon, this time on the impacts of seismic testing on the refuge. This destructive process, which will unleash convoys of giant :<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/climate/alaska-anwr-seismic-testing-tracks.html" target="_blank">thumper trucks</a>" onto the coastal plain, was previously conducted in 1985 under the Reagan administration. Monitoring a quarter-century later showed that more than <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/seismic.html" target="_blank">120 miles of ruts still scar the fragile tundra</a>, their hard angles and straight lines intercepting the ponds and meandering streams of the natural landscape. Although testing was scheduled to begin next month, it has been slowed by evidence it may <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/12/anwr-polar-bears-trump/" target="_blank">harm or kill</a> denning polar bear mothers and cubs. Ironically, unseasonable warmth and President Trump's chaotic government shutdown also <a href="https://www.adn.com/business-economy/energy/2018/12/28/shutdown-delays-oil-exploration-plans-in-the-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/" target="_blank">slowed</a> the process.</p><p>The <a href="http://ourarcticrefuge.org/" target="_blank">Gwich'in Steering Committee</a>, which includes Alaska Native people who grew up alongside the refuge and have been nourished by its caribou and other resources, are not laying all of their hopes on the comment period. On January 14 their representatives joined other indigenous people in Houston, Texas, to hand-deliver 100,000 letters pressuring SAExploration to withdraw its bid to perform the testing. The <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2019/01/houston-area-indigenous-leaders-stand-gwich-nation-deliver-100000-letters" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a> reports at least 200,000 emails, calls and letters have been sent to the company, the sole outfit to bid on the project.</p><p>The direct appeal to SAExploration reveals how resistance to drilling continues outside of formal comment periods—and it shows signs of success. Last month international bankers at Barclays responded to public pressure by <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/425252-barclays-to-reject-most-financing-for-drilling-in-arctic" target="_blank">announcing</a> they are unlikely to finance drilling in the Refuge because it is a "particularly fragile and pristine ecosystem."</p><p>Here's the final insult about drilling in the refuge: It's not necessary, either economically or for the energy it would produce. Fracking technology and decades of generous public lands giveaways to the oil industry have already given the United States undeniable global energy dominance. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge is an unnecessary excess, especially when we consider that the oil from far-off northern Alaska would most likely be sold for corporate profit to foreign markets, not to support America's energy needs. All it would serve is to line a few companies' pockets.</p><p>As the accelerated and sometimes confusing work to drill in the refuge moves forward, the time to stop this from happening—and prevent permanent harm to this extraordinary landscape—grows increasingly short. It's also a reminder of the threat the current government and extractive industries pose to our vital public lands. This is an important fight for wildlife, for wilderness, for the rights of indigenous peoples and for the climate. The Arctic Refuge may be remotely located and out of sight for most Americans, but it should not be out of mind.</p><p><em>The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of </em>The Revelator<em>, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.</em></p><p><em> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/trump-drilling-alaska-arctic-refuge/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em><em></em></em></p>
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Alaska Wilderness League
By Rebekah Ashley
Even though our day-to-day existence may be far removed from Arctic Alaska, we must stand for the protection of the Arctic Refuge and ask our representatives to do the same.
Most Americans oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In fact, a majority of us "strongly oppose it." This broad public concern echoed through the halls of Congress during Alaska Wilderness League's Wilderness Week, when more than 25 people from around the country (as far as Alaska and as young as six months) convened in Washington, DC, in late May to advocate for the protection of the Arctic Refuge. Collectively, our group met with more than 60 offices in just three days.
<p>The experience reaffirmed our role in the lower 48, where even though our day-to-day existence is far removed from Arctic Alaska, we must stand for the protection of the Arctic Refuge and ask our representatives to do the same.</p><p>"An assault on one community is an assault on all of us," said Adrienne Titus, an Inupiat and a community organizer at Native Movement. "An assault on one tribe is an assault on all of them."</p><p><strong>Grassroots Support</strong></p><p>Wilderness Week participants were given an overview of the past year in activism—that is, the grassroots support that has ramped up across the country since the Arctic Refuge was opened for drilling including rallies, district office meetings, community events, letters to the editor and the collection of hundreds of thousands of public comments on the issue.</p><p>We also learned about <a href="https://huffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-huffman-introduces-bill-to-repeal-gop-tax-scam-s-arctic-wildlife" target="_blank">recently introduced legislation</a> to undo the GOP mandate to lease the Arctic Refuge for drilling. This bill is a reminder that there are people in Congress who have and will continue to listen to public concerns for indigenous rights and environmental protection. It is crucial that our congressional representatives <a href="https://act.alaskawild.org/sign/2017Refuge_cos/" target="_blank">hear from us</a> if they have not already signed onto this important bill.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODE5NzA5Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNTkzMjAxOH0.gE-AB1dW7DM5vsMKlijClueOGxsvhE6LGsfm137D4SE/img.jpg?width=980" id="f04e9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1b2cd5032f7589e36c4ae08401578e3d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Rebekah Ashley (right) with her sister Elisabeth (center-right), Noa Banayan (Alaska Wilderness League, center-left) and Adrienne Titus (Native Movement, center-front)</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Alaska Wilderness League</small></p><p><strong>Meeting Our Reps</strong><br></p><p>To make sure that offices in both the House and Senate were hearing from constituents in the states they represent, Wilderness Week participants were divided up by geographic region. I was lucky to stand alongside my sister Elisabeth to represent New York, and we were joined by others from across the northeast. Lis and I built off our shared experiences in meetings with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's office and our representative Elise Stefanik (who we were able to flag in the hall and speak to directly). We also met with neighboring districts in upstate New York including offices for Reps. Claudia Tenney and Tom Reed, and other nearby states including Maine, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland.</p><p>"I cannot comprehend why something that would be looked at as inexcusable in one community could be put on another," Lis said as we wrapped up our meetings. And it's true, states in the lower 48 have opposed <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/offshore-oil-drilling">offshore drilling</a> because of the irreversible effects drilling poses on communities, ecosystems and the already <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">changing climate</a>.</p><p><strong>Public Forums and the Canadian Embassy</strong></p><p>During our second day of meetings, Wilderness Week participants attended a forum by the Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee, led by Representatives Raúl Grijalva (D-NM) and Jared Huffman (D-CA) focusing on <a href="https://democrats-naturalresources.house.gov/media/media-advisories/grijalva-to-hold-a-forum-on-the-dangers-of-opening-alaskas-arctic-refuge-to-oil-and-gas-drilling" target="_blank">the dangers of opening Alaska's Arctic Refuge to oil and gas drilling</a>. Later on, we attended an event hosted by the Canadian Embassy highlighting Canada's ongoing support for the Arctic Refuge and protecting its coastal plain. Gwich'in villages stand throughout Alaska and Canada, and at the embassy Gwich'in representative Donetta Tritt spoke to the importance of the Porcupine Caribou Herd to the survival of the Gwich'in people, and Canadian leaders reaffirmed their commitment to stand in solidarity with the Gwich'in to protect the herd.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODE5NzA5OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMjk4NjEwOH0.x3CU4dT5nC9Fcpz1kUTqsF62RU5oV2XaCC9P917z6o4/img.jpg?width=980" id="92be2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="19b8fa148745957a5990d2656f26d38b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Representatives Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Jared Huffman (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-NM) and Niki Tsongas (D-MA) discuss the Arctic Refuge across from Donetta Tritt, Rebecca Goodstein, David Hayes and Jamie Rappaport Clark.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Alaska Wilderness League</small></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODE5NzExMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyODIyODEyMX0.nfXdPndybl5yh0bjK_njJDH5uXqnw8NvdHAuDlcenRU/img.jpg?width=980" id="18713" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6ac55b72cc39e5b8a8abfc4bb6d8afe7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">At the Canadian Embassy, Donetta Tritt of the Gwich'in explains the relationship the Gwich'in people have with the Arctic Refuge and the porcupine caribou.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Alaska Wilderness League</small></p><p><strong>Wrapping Up</strong><br></p><p>Whether you're calling your members of Congress or speaking to them in their congressional offices, these steps can seem small compared to the challenges we're up against. That's why Wilderness Week was an amazing chance to connect with people from the broader community who are also committed to protecting the Arctic Refuge. It was also an opportunity to learn about the issue from those who have experienced it firsthand. While we still have a long way to go, people like those I met at Wilderness Week make the journey worthwhile.</p><p><strong>The BLM Public Hearing</strong></p><p>Several weeks later, I traveled back to DC with folks from my local community, including more of my family, to attend the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) only public hearing on Arctic Refuge leasing not being held in Alaska. This event allowed the broader public to share testimony and express their concerns about the leasing process for the Arctic Refuge directly to a panel representing BLM.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODE5NzExNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDU4MTIyMn0.xWNl_BGT-asBAl9LDGHY68CtwmhecTPYMzWsNRv-k8k/img.jpg?width=980" id="2f059" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="77b93714fa0cb9b64b9c2dbaaf475c0b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, makes the case for protecting the coastal plain.<a href="http://www.alaskawild.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Bekah-WW-hearing-recap-blog-6.jpg" target="_blank"></a></small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Alaska Wilderness League</small></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODE5NzExOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTYzMTM2OH0.v7WxkqGqexwPwN18zvxcQkS2NQmZU-9-q4hbUGwCGHc/img.jpg?width=980" id="875b1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6b4fa92ab04224f32bdd98620290c45c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A packed house was on hand in DC, the only public hearing on Arctic Refuge leasing being held outside of Alaska. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Alaska Wilderness League</small></p><p>Outside of the hearing, a rally took place where hundreds of people lined the streets in opposition to BLM. Many of those who weren't fortunate enough to secure a spot testifying at the hearing shared their story at the rally instead. Wendy Hall from the <a href="http://adirondackwildlife.org/" target="_blank">Adirondack Wildlife Refuge</a> shared her opposition for oil development in the Arctic Refuge because of the impacts it will have on global ecosystems and contribution to climate change.<br></p><p>My mother, Sandra Ashley, a teacher's aide at Lake Placid Middle School, gave testimony about the destructive message that drilling in the Arctic Refuge will send to her students and shared essays on their behalf that underscored the concerns that children feel for protecting <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a>.</p><p>Another friend of ours, Craig Stevens, a sixth generation land owner from Montrose, PA, held up a bottle of contaminated water from a sink in Pennsylvania during his testimony to remind the BLM how extractive industries can have an impact on our communities.</p><p>And Garett Reppenhagen of <a href="http://www.vetvoicefoundation.org/" target="_blank">Vet Voice Foundation</a>, a veteran of deployments in Kosovo and Iraq, shared his story about using outdoor therapy to help in the recovery process for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODE5NzEzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDkwNDEzMH0.TmU1hBOgxUFEH--L6jOS5CFEVBpaC4YUG68TkTCLGCk/img.jpg?width=980" id="fca75" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="544ac8456c092173467024fe6663644e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Garett Reppenhagen of Vet Voice Foundation describes his experiences in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Alaska Wilderness League</small></p><p>By the time the hearing came to a close it was after dark. BLM had heard countless concerns for protecting wildlife and fragile ecosystems, mitigating climate change impacts, standing up for indigenous cultures, and more. It was a reminder that Americans overwhelmingly oppose oil development in the Arctic Refuge, and instead believe this area must be protected once and for all.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="780a0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="N58EFJ1576661782"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="996510559574155264" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Investors Controlling $2.5 Trillion Stand With Indigenous People Against Trump Plan to Drill 'Sacred' Arctic Refuge… https://t.co/ggRjhskZaM</div> — Sierra Club (@Sierra Club)<a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClub/statuses/996510559574155264">1526421606.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Caribou graze on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with the Brooks Range as a backdrop. USFWS / Flickr
The political battle over whether to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ( ANWR) for oil and gas exploration has raged for decades. Despite the majority of Americans opposing drilling in ANWR, pro-drilling Republicans have tried more than 50 times open up the pristine wilderness to energy development.
But President Trump was apparently indifferent to the matter until an oil industry friend told him that past presidents, including conservative icon Ronald Reagan, couldn't get drilling done.
<p>
"I never appreciated ANWR so much," Trump said Thursday during a speech at a Republican retreat in West Virginia. "A friend of mine called up who is in that world and in that business. He said, 'Is it true that you're thinking about ANWR?' I said 'Yeah, I think we're going to get it but you know …' He said, 'Are you kidding? That's the biggest thing by itself. Ronald Reagan and every president has wanted to get ANWR approved.' And after that I said 'Oh, make sure that is in the bill. It was amazing how that had an impact."
</p><p>
Congress lifted a 40-year drilling ban on the refuge after the Republican tax reform bill was approved in December. This "
<a href="http://wilderness.org/blog/how-did-your-senators-vote-arctic-refuge-drilling" target="_blank">backdoor drilling provision</a>," as environmentalists have dubbed it, was added to the tax reform package to secure the key vote of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who introduced the measure and has <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-drilling-alaska-murkowski-2508047461.html" target="_blank">long championed</a> the cause.
</p><p>
Trump's remarks, however, implied that he was the driving force behind the provision's inclusion.
</p><p>
"I really didn't care about it," he said. "Then when I heard that everybody wanted it, for 40 years, everybody tried to get it approved, 'Make sure you don't lose ANWR.'"
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The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the largest
<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands" target="_blank">protected wilderness</a> in the U.S., consists of more than 19 million acres of pristine landscapes and is home to 37 species of land mammals, eight marine mammals, 42 fish species and more than 200 migratory bird species.
</p><p>
Republicans have targeted the so-called 1002 area on the Prudhoe Bay in Northern Alaska, which has an estimated 12 billion barrels of recoverable crude.
</p><p>
Adam Kolton, the executive director of <a href="http://www.alaskawild.org/" target="_blank">Alaska Wilderness League</a>, was critical of Trump's remarks.
</p><p>
"It's clear from President Trump's remarks that jamming Arctic Refuge drilling in the tax bill was always about politics and not a thoughtful energy policy," Kolton said. "President Trump should care that he signed a bill reversing not a Democratic policy, but protections that date back to Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt. This is a retreat from the GOP great conservation legacy."
</p><p>
<span></span>"Donald Trump might not care but millions of Americans do, and always have," he continued. "They care about protecting our last great wilderness. They care about the subsistence culture of the Gwich'in people whose way of life is now threatened. And they care about the polar bears, caribou and millions of migratory birds in this cherished landscape. They also care about the future of our climate, and do not want to see us squeeze every drop of oil out of our national parks and refuges just to increase our exports to places like China."</p><p><span></span>But Trump might care about ANWR more than he let on. After the speech, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) told <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2018/02/01/trump-really-didnt-care-about-anwr-then-a-friend-called/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a> that the president has cared about ANWR since at least last March. He and Sen. Murkowski even briefed Trump for nearly an hour on state issues and their request to open the refuge to drilling.
</p><p>
"After that meeting," Sullivan said, "Seeing him in different settings and stuff, a number of times, a number times, he would ask, 'Hey Dan, how are we doing on ANWR? We going to get that done?'"
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="cd2d4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1AF9091576683856"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="943843169225134080" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Why Americans Will Never Agree on Oil Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge https://t.co/MwRsNsLxW7 #ANWR… https://t.co/sXERHk8Txh</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/943843169225134080">1513864721.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
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Monroe Journal / iStock
By Sam Schipani
While the world was distracted by the government shutdown last Monday, Jan. 22, Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke signed a land-swap agreement with the King Cove Native Corporation to trade 500 acres of federal land in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, on the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula, for tribal land of equal value. The land will be used to build a 20-mile gravel road connecting King Cove to the nearby city of Cold Bay for medical evacuations in poor weather, 11 miles of which will pass through the wildlife refuge.
<p style="">Although many Alaskan legislators and King Cove residents celebrated the agreement, the land swap has faced opposition from environmental groups, subsistence communities and sportsmen. Izembek National Wildlife Refuge was the first area in the U.S. to be named a Wetland of International Importance at the <a href="https://www.ramsar.org/" target="_blank">Ramsar Convention</a> in 1986. Even though it is the smallest of the 16 national wildlife refuges located in Alaska, Izembek contains more than 200 wildlife species, including brown bears and caribou. Millions of migratory birds, including <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060070369" target="_blank">98 percent of the world's Pacific black brants and the entire global population of emperor geese</a>, rely on the vast stores of eel grass in the lagoons to feed during their journey along the Pacific Flyway.</p><p style="">"It is a very unique and extremely important ecosystem," said Nicole Wittington-Evans, Alaska regional director of the Wilderness Society. The road "would really change the entire feel and wilderness character of this area."</p><p style="">Subsistence communities in western Alaska, who have been involved in the area's conservation efforts since the early 1980s, have also spoken out against the project. In an April 2017 statement against the road project to House Committee on Natural Resources, Myron P. Naneng, chair of the Sea Lion Village Corporation Board, cited impacts to subsistence resources like waterfowl and fish, increased ATV use, and the federal government's legal obligation to subsistence communities under the <a href="https://www.doi.gov/subsistence" target="_blank">Federal Subsistence Management Program</a> as reasons the road project should not be built.</p><p>"Virtually the entire populations of Brant and Emperor geese depend on the Izembek refuge for feeding and staging, and because there are other effective transportation alternatives for King Cove, we cannot support this land exchange and road," Naneng said.</p><p>Wilderness advocates worry that, in addition to the localized impacts, a road through the Izembek refuge could open a precedent for other infrastructure projects in federally designated wilderness areas.</p><p style="">"When you build a road, invariably, in spite of all the promises and safeguards that are made, ultimately it becomes a public road," said Francis Mauer, retired wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska chapter representative from Wilderness Watch. There is a historical precedent for this in Alaska. During the development of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Dalton Highway (originally called the Haul Road) was only intended to be used to support pipeline construction and to access the northern oil fields. Despite those promises, the road was <a href="http://dnr.alaska.gov/Assets/uploads/DNRPublic/parks/interp/pdf/daltonhwyscenisbywaycorridor.pdf" target="_blank">fully opened to the public in 1994</a>. Although the road through Izembek would be built under the auspice of providing access to medical services, it could also be used to connect the King Cove cannery operations to the Cold Bay Airport, as originally proposed in the city's 1994 resolution.</p><p>Sportsmen are also concerned about the road. Barry Whitehall, a board member for the Alaska chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, wrote in <a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/opinion-a-backdoor-land-swap-to-build-in-alaskan-wilderness" target="_blank">High Country News</a> in October 2017 that "any hunter who has experienced the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge ... will never forget it." He continued, "Construction of a road through the heart of Izembek's wilderness lands would set a precedent endangering refuges and wilderness areas everywhere."</p><p>Under the <a href="https://wilderness.nps.gov/faqnew.cfm" target="_blank">1964 Wilderness Act</a>, new roads and motorized vehicle use are banned in wilderness areas, save for rare instances of providing access to mining claims. All but 15,000 of the 315,000-acre Izembek National Wildlife Refuge has been inaccessible to motorized traffic since Congress designated it wilderness in 1980 under the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/39" target="_blank">Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act</a>—the same law that designated wilderness in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-refuge-drilling-2517635533.html">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</a>, in which Congress lifted a decades-old ban on oil and gas drilling in December.</p><p style="">The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has <a href="https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region_7/NWRS/Zone_1/Izembek/PDF/03%20Chapter%201%20Purpose%20and%20Need.pdf" target="_blank">reviewed and rejected the road project multiple times</a> due to the irreparable damage it would cause to the ecosystems in the refuge. After Congress authorized a similar land exchange in 2009, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a four-year environmental impact assessment and rejected the project in 2013 due to the predicted adverse effects on habitats and wildlife.</p><p style="">"Simply exchanging lands will not compensate for myriad ripple effects on habitat and wildlife due to uses on and beyond the road, nor would new lands provide habitat for all the same species," the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2013/02/06/2013-02618/final-environmental-impact-statement-izembek-national-wildlife-refuge-proposed-land-exchangeroad" target="_blank">report</a> says.</p><p>King Cove, population 938, according to the 2010 census, is largely occupied by the Agdaagux tribe and fisherpeople. Its economy depends on the year-round commercial fishing and seafood-processing industries, particularly the <a href="http://www.ppsf.com/" target="_blank">Peter Pan Seafoods</a> facility that employs at least 500 townspeople and boasts to be one of the largest cannery operations in Alaska.</p><p>The area is also known for its storms—King Cove sits in a constricted mountain valley nestled between two volcanic peaks. Gale-force winds are common, making air transportation in and out of town difficult. The city reported 18 deaths in the past 30 years attributed to plane crashes or lack of access to medical treatment. The proposed road would connect the town to the all-weather Cold Bay Airport, where King Cove residents can fly 600 miles to Anchorage for medical care.</p><p>"We have spent decades fighting for this road for one reason—it is critical for our survival," said Della Trumble, spokeswoman for the King Cove Native Corporation and a member of the local Agdaagux tribe, in the King Cove press release on the topic. "We have already lost too many friends and loved ones for there to be any legitimate reason to oppose this agreement. A small road connecting two remote communities may not seem like an important issue to many people, but to us, it is a lifeline to the outside world."</p><p style="">The gravel road, however, may not be the best solution for the community's medical needs. Dr. Peter Mjos, former medical director for the Eastern Aleutian Tribes, described the road as a "calamity-in-waiting" in a 2013 letter to then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. "Any vehicle or ambulance attempting transit or rescue in such conditions could be suicidal, rescue impossible, rescuers gravely imperiled," Mjos detailed.</p><p style="">The federal government has proposed numerous alternatives to the road. Congress funded a hovercraft for the community in 1998, but the Aleutians East Borough discontinued its use in 2011, claiming it could no longer afford the $1 million in annual operating costs. A <a href="https://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=D8EA08E9-75F1-4D79-A833-87EE91616819" target="_blank">2015 assessment by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers</a> proposed a ferry capable of carrying passengers to Cold Bay year-round with 99 percent dependability based on historic wind data along the projected route. Mjos also described the ferry as "the safest, most reliable, most viable, and most cost-effective medical evacuation solution for the residents of King Cove."</p><p style="">There may be more than just medicine motivating the road's construction. The city of King Cove passed a <a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2014/03/24/document_gw_05.pdf" target="_blank">resolution</a> in 1994 stating that the road would link the salmon cannery in King Cove with Cold Bay Airport with no mention of the health and safety concerns. Alaskan politicians throughout the years have cited the commercial benefits of the King Cove road as the raison d'être for its construction—only recently has the issue of access to health care come into play.</p><p style="">Certain Alaskan legislators have long been invested in the King Cove road project. Following the agreement's signing, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaskan Republican, convened Zinke, King Cove residents, Gov. Bill Walker, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young for a news conference to celebrate the achievement. The <a href="https://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/Timeline%20-%20History%20of%20the%20Proposed%20Road%20Through%20Izembek%20National%20Wildlife%20Refuge.pdf" target="_blank">Murkowski family has advocated for legislative action to make the King Cove road</a> a reality for two decades. The current senator's father, Sen. Frank Murkowski, first introduced the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/senate-bill/1092" target="_blank">King Cove Health and Safety Act</a>, which would have allowed construction of the road, in 1997. Then-president Bill Clinton threatened to veto the bill, but it ultimately died in the House. In 2007, Sen. Murkowski reignited the debate with a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/senate-bill/1680" target="_blank">proposed bill for a land exchange</a>, and has been working toward bringing the road to fruition ever since.</p><p>Murkowski is one of the leading Senate voices on rolling back protections for federal land. She has consistently advocated for increasing oil and gas production in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and spearheaded a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/3203?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22sa+838%22%5D%7D" target="_blank">2016 bill</a> to favor oil and gas development and prevent conservation designations on federal lands in Alaska. Now, she has support from the top.</p><p style="">The King Cove road project "is [the Trump administration] taking its chance, like it's done on a host of other conservation issues," said Dan Ritzman, Alaska program director at the Sierra Club. "This administration, which is willing to do and try anything, gave Senator Murkowski this window to move on this action."</p><p>The King Cove road project has received a surprising amount of attention from the White House. The Washington Post first reported on the inner workings for the deal, which was described by Interior officials as an internal "<a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/interior-officials-describe-izembek-land-exchange-as-push-from-zinkes-office/2584/" target="_blank">push</a>" from Zinke, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interior-looks-at-behind-the-scenes-land-swap-to-allow-road-through-wilderness-refuge/2017/10/15/c6458380-aeb7-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.1f189e8cfa8d" target="_blank">in October</a>. According to <a href="http://media10.washingtonpost.com/generic/media/document_cloud/document/pdf/izdoclink7.pdf" target="_blank">emails</a> obtained by the Defenders of Wildlife in a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, Interior officials made a concerted effort to conceal the plan in fear of how the public would respond. But President Trump reportedly took personal interest in the issue after The Washington Post's story was published. He reportedly sent a <a href="https://twitter.com/eilperin/status/955491469527339008" target="_blank">copy of the paper to Murkowski with the message</a>, "Lisa, we will get it done."</p><p><em><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/zinke-moves-build-road-through-alaskan-wilderness-area" target="_blank">SIERRA Magazine</a>.</em></em></p>
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Christine Irvine / 350.org
By Jamie Henn
Let's talk for a moment about how the climate movement is going to fight back in 2018.
But first, a public service announcement.
This Jan. 31, movement leaders like the one-and-only Bernie Sanders, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, Jacqueline Patterson of the NAACP, and more, are coming together for an event called "Fossil Free Fast: The Climate Resistance," to lay out a movement game plan for 2018.
<p>If you're in the DC area you should attend the event (<a href="http://bit.ly/fossilfreetickets" target="_blank">tickets here</a>). If not, <a href="http://bit.ly/fossilfreefast" target="_blank">you can host or join a house party</a> to tune into the broadcast with fellow activists in your community. There are more than 100 parties already registered nationwide. This isn't an evening you want to miss.<br></p><p>OK. Now let's get down to the business of resistance.</p><p>After a year of watching the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration wreck havoc on our communities and the climate, we know that 2018 is going to bring an onslaught of new assaults. On the climate front, those attacks will take the form of cutting environmental protections and easing the way for more <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuel</a> extraction.</p><p>We got a preview of horrors to come in January, when the administration announced it would be opening up our coastlines for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/offshore-oil-drilling">offshore drilling</a>. That's on top of plans to expand mining on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>, allow for drilling in the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic">Arctic</a> National Wildlife Refuge, and rubber stamp any and all new fossil fuel projects the industry can come up with.</p><p>Even more insidious is the way in which <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency</a> Administrator <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruitt">Scott Pruitt</a> is attempting to dismantle decades of environmental regulations. If there's a rule in place to protect public health or the environment, you can bet Pruitt is taking a hatchet to it. At the top of his kill list for 2018 is the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/clean-power-plan">Clean Power Plan</a>, the Obama-era policy to limit pollution from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> fired power plants and one of our most important tools to combat rising emissions.</p><p>But there's an Achilles heel to Trump and his cronies' plan to smother the nation with <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines">pipelines</a> and smog, because no matter the actions they take in Washington, DC, these fossil fuel projects need to get built in towns, cities and counties across America. Trump can crow all he wants about coal, oil and gas, but ultimately, it's not his little hands doing the construction. Even with the full backing of the White House, the only way a fossil fuel project moves forward is if it can secure all the necessary permits and local support. That can be tough for new mines and it's especially difficult for major pipelines, which often run through multiple states and dozens of towns and counties along their proposed routes.</p><p>Which brings us to the first way that we're going to fight back in 2018: organizing in our communities to stop all new fossil fuel projects.</p><p>Right now there isn't a project in North America that doesn't face some form of community resistance. From British Columbia to Pennsylvania, local groups are building alliances to resist any new project the industry throws our way. By working together, we can hold back fossil fuel projects long enough so that <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewables</a> take over and the economic case for building these pipelines and mines disappears. We're not going to win every fight, but so far, the resistance is working and even the most inevitable seeming projects are now facing stiff opposition.</p><p>Take the case of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/keystone-xl">Keystone XL</a>. One of Trump's first actions when he was elected was to approve the federal permit for the project. Since then, he's been bragging that they " built the Keystone XL pipeline." Meanwhile, the actual pipeline is still rusting above ground somewhere in the Dakotas waiting to be assembled. In the real world, Keystone XL is still miles away from construction. TransCanada, the company building the project, may have a permit, but they're still struggling to line up enough buyers for the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/tar-sands">tar sands</a> oil they want to ship down to Texas (the company announced last week it had secured two-thirds of the commitments it needs, but even those pledges are shaky and had to be propped up by the government in Alberta). TransCanada also hasn't secured construction rights from farmers and ranchers along a new route they've been forced to take through Nebraska.</p><p>There's even a bolder roadblock facing Keystone: you. Over the past few months, nearly 15,000 people have signed the <a href="https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-the-promise-to-protect?source=direct_link&referrer=group-198-methods" target="_blank">Promise to Protect</a>, a pledge to travel to the route of the pipeline if TransCanada attempts to start building and peacefully resist construction in every way we can. The Promise to Protect should send a chill down the spine of TransCanada and any of their financial backers. Our organizing has held this pipeline back for over seven years and Trump can't do anything about it. You could have the CEO of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/exxon">ExxonMobil</a> in the White House (oh wait, he's <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rex-tillerson">secretary of state</a>) and Keystone still wouldn't get built. This resistance isn't going anywhere.</p><p>Even if you don't live near a pipeline or a <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/">fracking</a> well there's still a way to contribute to stopping projects. Just like in the fight against Big Tobacco or <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear">nuclear power</a>, we're going to be using the model of local resolutions to beat back the fossil fuel industry everywhere they rear their head. Our goal is to pass hundreds of "Fossil Free" resolutions in cities and towns across the country that ban the construction of new fossil fuel projects. In doing so, we'll help tie up the industry in a web of resistance and helping protect our communities in perpetuity.</p><p>That's job number one: stop all new fossil fuel projects. But playing defense isn't enough—we also want to go on offense to build the world that works for all of us, not just a wealthy few. Which brings us to job number two.</p><p>The second way we're going to fight back in 2018 is driving forward a fast and just transition to 100 percent renewable energy for all.<br></p><p>Together, we're going to use 2018 to build a groundswell for 100 percent renewable energy in cities and towns across America. By the end of the year, our goal is to have won at least 100 commitments from communities to go to 100 percent renewable in a just and equitable way. More than that, we want to show the inevitability of the entire country moving in this direction. That means a lot of public education to show people this world is possible, and a lot of political pressure to make sure that every candidate for elected office has signed onto our goal of 100 percent for all.</p><p>For many climate advocates, the 100 percent piece will seem clear. Over the last decade, advances in renewable energy technology have made it possible to get all of our power from the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/solar">sun</a>, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wind">wind</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hydropower">water</a>. New breakthroughs in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/battery-storage/">battery storage</a> mean that old concerns about the "reliability" of renewables are quickly fading away. The vision of a carbon-free world is quickly coming into focus.</p><p>But what about the justice and equity piece? We know that our current fossil fuel-based energy system, and all the pollution that comes with it, didn't just get built on a whim. It was enabled by and has perpetuated deep social inequality. While predominantly white, affluent communities can flip on the light switch and still enjoy clean air and water, poorer communities of color are often stuck with a power plant or oil refinery polluting their neighborhoods and threatening their <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/childrens-health">children's health</a>. Meanwhile, because of corporate monopolies and a lack of worker protections, the vast wealth being created by the fossil fuel economy has flowed in one direction: upwards. As fossil fuel billionaires have pocketed ever more profits, workers and entire communities have been left behind. Climate change just exacerbates these pre-existing inequalities. The same communities who have born the brunt of our pollution-based economy are often on the frontlines of climate impacts.</p><p>With the transition to 100 percent renewable energy, we have perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity to rebuild our economy in a more just and equitable way. Through public investments, we can guarantee that it's not just the rich who can afford to put up solar panels, but those who live in public housing or rental units who are first in line for retrofits and upgrades. With worker training programs and the right incentives, we can make sure that there are enough jobs created so that both workers in the fossil fuel industry and those who never had a shot at a good paying, union job, can get employment in the renewables sector. By making sure that everyone has a seat at the table, we can design transition plans that make sure we truly have 100 percent "for all" rather than just the 1 percent.</p><p>That's the work we need to continue in 2018. There are already great 100 percent efforts underway, from <a href="http://sierraclub.org" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a>'s "Ready for 100" campaign to the NAACP's "Solar For All" effort. Our job is to double, triple, and quadruple these efforts. Remember those "Fossil Free" resolutions I mentioned above? This is the second piece of that puzzle. As we call on our cities and towns to ban new fossil fuel infrastructure, we'll also ask them to commit to "100 percent for all" and then work with them to make sure they're implementing these plans.</p><p>These two pieces of local resistance, fighting projects and promoting renewables, can make up the bulk of our efforts in 2018, but there's another key way we need to make progress. That's because as beautiful and brilliant our distributed resistance is going to be, we still need a way to strike at the heart of the fossil fuel industry. As we work from the bottom up to flip our energy mix, we also need to hit the industry where it hurts: their pocketbooks.</p><p>The third way we're going to fight back in 2018 is by continuing the fossil fuel divestment movement and ensuring that not a penny more goes to new fossil fuel projects.</p><p>Over the last five years, the fossil fuel divestment campaign has grown from a handful of college campuses to the largest divestment effort in history. By now, nearly 700 institutions representing $6 trillion in assets have made some form of divestment commitment. In December, the trillion dollar Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund announced that it was expanding its coal divestment to include oil and gas. Soon after, the World Bank announced that it was no longer going to finance new oil and gas development.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="be92d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="PX5TKD1576661702"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="951176884292857856" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">'Tide Is Turning': Cheers Erupt for NYC's Suit Against Fossil Fuel Giants and Divestment https://t.co/KaBVYn0JmN… https://t.co/hspjQtAHy6</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/951176884292857856">1515613215.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
<p>Perhaps the most amazing series of announcements came just a couple weeks ago. Governor Andrew Cuomo kicked things off by announcing that New York State was going to pursue fossil fuel divestment. Not to be outdone by Albany, Mayor Bill de Blasio took an even bolder step forward, announcing that New York City would not only be divesting from fossil fuels, but also suing the five largest publicly held oil companies for damages caused by climate change. It's hard to overstate the significance of this move. The world's most iconic city and heart of the global financial industry has declared war on fossil fuels.</p><p>It feels like fossil fuel divestment may be reaching a tipping point. With New York city and state taking a steps forward, the excuses for others to hold back are looking increasingly lame, and risky. Oil, coal and gas are quickly becoming the guns and tobacco of the 21st century: investments-non-grata for institutions with a conscience. Even those without a conscience are dropping their stocks, however, since nobody wants to be the last one holding onto fossil fuels when the rest of the world realizes the industry is doomed.</p><p>Our job in 2018 is to push divestment over the top. Every new city, state and institution that makes a divestment commitment helps hasten the day when the entire economy moves away from fossil fuels and into clean energy. Forget trying to engage with fossil fuel companies—we've had three decades of those sorts of efforts and little show for it—it's divestment that will send a clear signal that business as usual is no longer possible. As fossil fuel stocks become increasingly tainted, it will becomes less and less acceptable for banks (who worry deeply about their brands) to finance new coal, oil and gas development, putting the industry in even more of a precarious situation.</p><p>Bring these three pieces together—stopping fossil fuels, building momentum towards 100 percent, and divestment—and we've got ourselves a game plan for 2018. Now here's the timeline. This year, we've got two key dates to work towards.</p><p>The first is Sept. 8, 2018. That's the weekend before the Global Climate Action Summit, a major conference being held in San Francisco to drive forward local action on climate change. The summit is connected with the United Nations climate talks, but instead of focusing on national governments, the meeting in September will focus on the commitments from "non-state actors," i.e. cities, states, investors, businesses and other institutions.</p><p>Our goal is to leverage this summit as a way to drive forward the three demands above: no new fossil fuel infrastructure, 100 percent renewable energy for all, and fossil fuel divestment. Since every one of our mayors and governors is being invited to make a commitment for the summit, every one of them can be pressured to meet our demands before that September deadline. Just to make sure, we're planning a mobilization the weekend before, on Sept. 8, at city halls and state houses across the country. Whether those rallies are a celebration of the commitments our elected officials have made, or a protest demanding they do more, will depend on them.</p><p>After we take to the streets in September, we'll focus on the next key date on the calendar. You guessed it: Nov. 8. If it isn't abundantly clear by now, elections have consequences. We need to make sure that this election day, every single person that cares about climate justice is registered to vote and knocking on doors to send a clear signal to the establishment that we need elected officials who don't just believe in climate change, but are ready to do something about it. Nonprofits that can't engage in electoral activity will be investing in public education and voter registration, while political organizations will be promoting climate champions and taking down deniers and industry puppets. As activists, our job will be to figure out how we can make the biggest difference locally and support any and all national efforts that support our end goals.</p><p>So, let's get to work. <a href="http://bit.ly/fossilfreefast" target="_blank">Fossil Free Fast</a>, the event on Jan. 31, is when the action begins. It's also the perfect opportunity for you to get a group together in your community, or meet up with an existing crew, and lay out your game plan for working on the goals above (and whatever other priorities you want to take on) over the coming year.<br></p><p>2018 isn't a year to sit on the sidelines or behind the comfort of your screen. It's a year to get out and organize. The resistance is everywhere and it's brilliant and beautiful and brave. The deepest thanks to all of your who are already deeply involved in driving it forward. To the rest of you, join us.</p><p><em>Jamie Henn is co-founder and director of strategic communications for the international climate campaign <a href="http://www.350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a>. </em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/01/25/fossil-free-fast-climate-resistance-game-plan-2018" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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Exposed: Chevron's Secretive Drilling Site in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
11 January 2018
Popular
Chevron's KIC-1 post, seen in front of the Brooks Mountain Range in northern Alaska. Jonathan Rosenblum
It's the middle of the frigid, long midnight at Tapkaurak Point, a spit of gravel curling out into the Beaufort Sea off the northern coast of Alaska. Up in the middle of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the largest remaining wilderness area in the U.S., the sun set weeks ago and won't peek above the horizon until the middle of January.
<p>If you were there now, bundled up against the minus-20-degree chill, you could climb the low bluff at Tapkaurak, turn away from the frozen sea, and in the dim light cast by the moon and the stars you'd take in the expansive <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic">arctic</a> plain giving way to the craggy Brooks Range to the south. In the middle of the plain, if the aurora borealis is bright enough, you might see poking out of the snow cover an upright post—physically insignificant but utterly out of place in the treeless Arctic landscape.</p><p>The post isn't a trivial anomaly. It stands as a warning sign for all of us, advertising the ambitions of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/big-oil">Big Oil</a> to turn this place from a wilderness into an industrial profit mill. Wedged into last month's $1.5 billion tax cut law, which benefits mostly the 1 percent, is a provision opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to commercial oil drilling.</p><p>After decades of being denied access to the refuge, the oil companies have achieved a legislative milestone. And absent a movement of popular resistance combined with legal action, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will join the growing list of places around the world plundered by CEOs and a political elite who put profits before people and the planet. We can and must stop them.</p><p>Fourteen summers ago I was fortunate to visit Tapkaurak Point, and saw up close what the future holds for the refuge if Trump, Congress and Big Oil get their way. I landed my kayak at Tapkaurak toward the end of a two-week Arctic refuge paddling trip with three friends. We had gone down the Kongakut River and along the Beaufort coast toward the village of Kaktovik, arriving at Tapkaurak late in the evening in mid-July. We ascended the bluff. To the north, the gravel tidelands of the spit gave way to a lagoon, bounded by a long narrow reef. Beyond the reef lay the Beaufort pack ice. To the south of us spread miles of arctic plain, sedge grass lit up in brilliant gold by the midnight sun. Beyond, the peaks of the Brooks Range, wearing a new coat of white snow, stood out boldly against the blue sky. And then we saw the post.</p><p>We walked toward it, through marshy fields of just-thawed permafrost dotted with tufts of wispy Alaska cotton and bladder campion—a hardy purple-and-pink-striped Japanese lantern-shaped flower just a few inches high. Red-necked phalaropes, readying for their late-summer flight to South America, bathed in small pools of water.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzA2NTk4OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDIzMjE1MH0.VpKLaDkXV9jCvMmQmMGnkI48QHF4vJhDlFm4z4Bb4L4/img.jpg?width=980" id="2f3b1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="efbb7a5ad3734f01d017cd70751095cf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Alaska cotton is abundant in the Arctic tundra regions. Oil and gas development strips the landscape of vegetation and in the Arctic, destroys permafrost.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Jonathan Rosenblum</small></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzA2NjAxOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTQyMjk4M30.m4YpawvjFaURMpPUTBLlrV2x9clw0xFA7qWqTAiGdRQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="2ad70" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ad65f96ad96a56250e7dc5a4fad9d031" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">The delicate bladder campion is a uniquely designed wildflower that blooms in late spring.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Jonathan Rosenblum</small></p><p>The tufts of dirt pushed up by permafrost were laced with small animal holes, and the snowy owl feathers scattered around were evidence that the birds had been hunting recently. The thousands of caribou who spend summers on the Arctic coast had already headed south into the Brooks Range, but sprinkled around the plain were antlers—shed after calving season, or perhaps the remnants of animals taken by predators.</p><p>Approaching the post we saw that it was a solid iron column, welded with the letters, "CHEVRON USA INC." This was the KIC-1 drilling site, the secretive test well Chevron was allowed to drill in 1986. Crews bored three miles down, at a cost of $40 million, before capping the site, dismantling the drilling platform and going home.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzA2NjA0My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODYwNzAwMn0.JQkSkWQAOED_bQA4vdeKMJ1V0hnFan8_R5H_CWC1hBs/img.jpg?width=980" id="25fd4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7a184c8310a09ea29250467da785755d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Chevron's KIC-1 post at the company's secretive test well</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Jonathan Rosenblum</small></p><p><a href="https://juneauempire.com/stories/040801/Ins_arctic1.html#.WkADo0xFw2w" target="_blank">Chevron executives know what the well found, but they aren't telling</a>. Years ago, a court gave the company the right to withhold the information from the public.</p><p>Even with Chevron's claim to have remediated the site, half-buried construction trash surrounds the post: Metal cans and grating, cloth, wood, and glass bottles, all of it ever-so-slowly deteriorating in the cold, dry Arctic. Trash does not compost up there—it lingers on.</p><p>Compared to the surrounding permafrost marshes, which were teeming with grasses, flowers and low shrubs, the land around the drilling site was mostly a bare brown, compacted from the weight of heavy vehicles and machinery that visited a generation earlier.</p><p>A short way to the south, more shapes rose from the plain. We slogged across the swampy ground to investigate. These weren't test drilling holes. It was an old Inupiat graveyard. The grave markers, in various stages of decay, were made of wood. "Raymond Nanolo, Dead August 12 1933." Another, name undistinguishable, had a 1922 date on it. They were trappers and hunters, people with tremendous ingenuity, self-reliance and stamina who walked lightly on the land, as their ancestors had for the last 3,000 years.</p><p>The next night, as we launched our boats off the gravel of Tapkaurak Point and headed west, I looked back at the arctic plain and the iron post. It was a small pinprick on the vast horizon. But even this tiny human experiment had left an indelible mark on the land, with its trashed-out site and barren ground.</p><p>What <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> and Congress aim to do is take the human destruction at Tapkaurak's KIC-1 site and expand it by many orders of magnitude. Even with new technologies like horizontal drilling, oil and gas production is a big deal, requiring powerful drills chewing through the earth, endless miles of pipes and electrical transmission lines reaching over the horizon, and slurries of mud and other waste. And then there are accidents.</p><p>For comparison, you could just look 120 miles west of Tapkaurak, at the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and the 800-mile <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines">pipeline</a> that extends from the fields to the south through Alaska. <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0809/p02s01-usgn.html" target="_blank">Those fields and pipeline at one point averaged 500 oil spills a year</a>.</p><p>It's no wonder that 70 percent of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/americans-oppose-drilling-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/?utm_source=Yale+Program+on+Climate+Change+Communication&utm_campaign=2418476467-20171204_anwr&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_de6cdfce82-2418476467-326520565" target="_blank">oppose drilling in the Arctic refuge</a>.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="10faa" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="COGBE81576662099"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="944156858029363201" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Why Americans Will Never Agree on Oil Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge https://t.co/5jueNgalae… https://t.co/o4Q6ApFEIB</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/944156858029363201">1513939511.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>The Trump administration's Christmas gift isn't intended for anyone but a very narrow band of one percenters—Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who conditioned her tax bill "aye" vote to the Arctic drilling proviso, and the CEOs and major shareholders of Big Oil, who salivate at the idea of opening up the Arctic refuge to their profiteering.<br></p><p>Yet even with the passage of the law, resistance is not futile; indeed, it must be redoubled and join up with other fights to save the environment from oil profiteers. Two years ago, Shell Oil executives, facing a growing movement of mounting, creative protests and negative publicity, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/28/shell-ceases-alaska-arctic-drilling-exploratory-well-oil-gas-disappoints" target="_blank">pulled their drilling operations out of the western Alaskan Chukchi Sea</a>.</p><p>The Native American-led <a href="https://www.defunddapl.org/" target="_blank">DefundDAPL movement has persuaded</a> cities, organizations, tribes and individuals to withdraw more than $4 billion from Wells Fargo Bank because of its funding of the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/dakota-access-pipeline">Dakota Access Pipeline</a>. <a href="https://standwithstandingrock.net/standing-rock-sioux-applauds-bnp-paribas-decision-divest-dapl/" target="_blank">Three European banks pulled their funding for DAPL</a> after the mass demonstrations at Standing Rock.</p><p>Now, a broad coalition of Native American and First Nation activists, including the DefundDAPL leadership, has <a href="https://lastrealindians.com/indigenous-leaders-launch-new-campaign-to-defund-all-four-proposed-tar-sands-pipelines/" target="_blank">launched a divestment campaign</a> aimed at funders of proposed <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/tar-sands">tar sands</a> pipelines in Canada. Through direct actions, including <a href="https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/activists-disrupt-over-100-bank-branches-across-seattle-for-financing-tar-sands-projects/" target="_blank">militant bank office takeovers</a>, the movement is building public awareness and pressing banks to withhold capital from these controversial projects.</p><p>Activist leaders recognize the need for hardball tactics.</p><p>"Big Oil, multinational corporations and their financial backers are not persuaded by moral and environmental arguments," explained Matt Remle, a Lakota Nation leader and co-founder of <a href="https://mazaskatalks.org/" target="_blank">Mazaska Talks</a> ("Mazaska" is a Lakota word for money). "They're capitalist and they are persuaded by one thing, money."</p><p>Just last month, <a href="https://lastrealindians.com/victory-wells-fargo-excluded-from-banking-contracts-divest-l-a-statement/" target="_blank">activists pushed the Los Angeles City Council to disqualify Wells Fargo from doing business with the city</a>.</p><p>These boycott movements, led by native peoples and environmental groups like <a href="https://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a>, are just getting going.</p><p>Now, with the latest congressional action, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge joins the list of places to defend with organizing, boycotts and direct action, in addition to legal challenges.</p><p>Big Oil and their political patrons are counting on the reality that few people outside of the native Inupiat and the occasional kayak tourist will ever get a chance to stand at Tapkaurak Point and take in the splendor of the surrounding wilderness, or stand in silent awe in the burial ground of a people who lived in harmony with the arctic since before the time of King Solomon, Jesus of Nazareth, or the Prophet Mohammed. Only a handful of us will ever spy that ominous totem standing in the near distance of the Arctic plain, warning us that this all could go away in a handful of years.</p><p>But you don't have to go there to recognize that what's at stake is a lot more than the risk of scarred ground, ruined vistas, desecrated grave sites and a polluted wilderness. Rather, the destruction of the Arctic refuge would stand as a totem to the triumph of the capitalist drive for profit over the humane stewardship of our planet. We must not let that happen.</p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/chevron-has-secretive-drilling-site-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge" target="_blank">AlterNet</a>.</em></p>
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Why Americans Will Never Agree on Oil Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
21 December 2017
Popular
The Brooks Range in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Hillebrand / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
After decades of bitter struggle, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) seems on the verge of being opened to the oil industry. The consensus tax bill Republicans are trying to pass retains this measure, which was added to gain the key vote of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
<p style="">
This bill, however, stands no chance of being the final word. ANWR has been called America's Serengeti and the last petroleum frontier, terms I've seen used over <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/aapgbull/article-abstract/89/3/291/40203" target="_blank">more than a decade studying this area</a> and the politics around it. But even these titles merely hint at the <a href="http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-101/issue-15/exploration-development/anwr-1002-area-and-development-one-question-many-issues.html" target="_blank">multifold conflict</a> ANWR represents–spanning politics, economics, culture and philosophy.
</p><p style="">
<strong>Differing Views From the Start</strong>
</p><p>
Little of this debate, which stretches back decades, makes sense without some background. Let's begin with wildlife, the core of why the refuge exists.
</p><p>
With 45 species of land and marine mammals and over 200 species of birds from six continents, ANWR <a href="https://www.amnh.org/explore/science-bulletins/earth/documentaries/reading-the-rocks-the-search-for-oil-in-anwr/essay-northern-alaska-rich-in-wildlife-and-oil/" target="_blank">is more biodiverse</a> than almost any area in the Arctic. This is especially true of <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/wildlife_habitat.html" target="_blank">the coastal plain portion</a>, or 1002 Area, the area now being opened up to exploration and drilling. This has the largest number of polar bear dens in Alaska and supports muskoxen, Arctic wolves, foxes, hares and dozens of fish species. It also serves as temporary home for millions of migrating waterfowl and the Porcupine Caribou Herd which has its calving ground there.
</p><p>
All of which merely suggests the unique concentration of life in ANWR and the opportunity it offers to scientific study. One part of the debate is therefore over how drilling might impact this diversity.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjk2MDI2Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMjA3MDYyMX0.qjQYo46PUXAnVKDIHsDy5w2rvVRG5mrEViAlS5bH32w/img.jpg?width=980" id="25c76" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0d1f51f5ea31757a0dcfbffaca145ef4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Map of northern Alaska showing locations of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, including. the 1002 Area, which is slated to be opened for oil and gas drilling, and the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPRA).</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit..."> U.S. Geological Survey</small>
</p><p style="">
At the same time, debate over this area's mineral resources has existed <a href="http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-101/issue-15/exploration-development/anwr-1002-area-and-development-one-question-many-issues.html" target="_blank">since even before Alaska's founding</a>. An effort by the <a href="https://www.fws.gov/" target="_blank">U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service</a> to withdraw part of northeast Alaska from mining (later drilling) was eventually passed by the House in 1960 but then killed in the Senate, on the urging of both Alaska senators. It was resurrected by President Eisenhower through an executive order establishing a wildlife range (not refuge, which requires government protection and study).
</p><p>
ANWR thus began as a battleground over state versus federal control of resources. Change came with the oil crises of the 1970s. After much debate, Congress passed and President Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980, increasing the size of the area to 19.4 million acres and changing it to a "refuge." ANILCA also mandated an evaluation of wildlife, oil and natural gas resources, and impacts if drilling occurred.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjk2MDI2My9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTU3ODczNX0.vXfftXYCYf_zbP0iqvpQ4kBkMU_oKKfwEGmCgnvCijg/img.gif?width=980" id="8ecea" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f15eeee4a4f6fac1e1e04e18b9df021e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Map shows the 1002 Area, which will be opened up to oil and gas exploration, along with existing drilling sites in the region.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">U.S. Geological Survey</small>
</p><p>
Such evaluation was delivered to Congress in 1987, with three principal conclusions. First, the 1.5 million-acre 1002 Area, had "outstanding wilderness values." Second, it also had large hydrocarbon resources, likely tens of billions of barrels. Third, oil development would bring widespread changes in habit, but adequate protection for wildlife was achievable and leasing should proceed.
</p><p style="">
Made public, these results ignited major opposition from environmental groups. However, low oil prices meant that no companies would be interested in drilling so no action toward leasing was taken. Over the next 20 years, Congress and the president traded blows over drilling, with Republicans passing or proposing legislation in favor and Democrats voting down or vetoing or the relevant bills.
</p><p style="">
<strong>Matters of Wilderness
</strong></p><p>
These struggles added support to a larger view: that wilderness is incompatible with any level of development. The stance is often referenced to the <a href="https://wilderness.nps.gov/document/wildernessAct.pdf" target="_blank">1964 Wilderness Act</a>, a venerable law protecting wildlands but one whose definition of "wilderness" is ambiguous: "an area of undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character … [that] generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable." The vagueness here allows for ANILCA's position that drilling could happen so long as protection of wildlife and reclamation of land occurred.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjk2MDI2Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDM2MDI2OX0.3B8Vj7ThuPyfc2w-GrEsfEusfym5GHXEhxNIV507S50/img.jpg?width=980" id="3cd70" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ffaf573699c2687dd340423dbac3693a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Caribou grazing on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The area is more diverse than any area on the Arctic.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service</small>
</p><p style="">
Today, however, <a href="http://wilderness.org/article/wilderness-act" target="_blank">no such allowance is accepted</a> by pro-wilderness organizations and the <a href="http://wilderness.org/article/wilderness-act" target="_blank">FWS</a>. "You can have the oil. Or you can have this pristine place. You can't have both. No compromise," said <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/09/15/donald-trump-big-oil-alaska-arctic-wildlife-refuge/" target="_blank">Robert Mrazek</a>, ex-chair of the <a href="http://www.alaskawild.org/" target="_blank">Alaska Wilderness League</a>.
</p><p style="">
Saving ANWR has thus become an effort to save the very idea of wilderness, culturally and philosophically.
</p><p style="">
<strong>How Much Oil?</strong>
</p><p>
The most recent <a href="https://energy.usgs.gov/RegionalStudies/Alaska/ANWR1002.aspx" target="_blank">comprehensive assessment</a> of oil and gas in the 1002 Area was by the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/" target="_blank">U.S. Geological Survey</a> (USGS) in 1998. This work shows a mean estimate of 10.4 billion barrels of oil and 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which at today's prices ($57/bbl oil, $3/kcf) equals a total value of about $600 billion before drilling.
</p><p>
If well costs were $50 a barrel (low for onshore Arctic drilling today but possible with cost reductions spurred by 1002 development), the value after extraction would be $100 billion, from which a federal royalty of 12.5 percent must be subtracted, yielding $87.5 billion–a significant sum. Obviously if well costs are higher, this figure would be lower. Note that Alaska gets 90 percent of that federal royalty and pays a yearly dividend to every state resident–one reason many Alaskans favor drilling and reject the uncompromising wilderness position.
</p><p>
When considering how oil and gas is available, the USGS estimates should be considered low, even minimal. This is because they were made well before the current era of shale oil and gas and tight oil and gas development. <a href="https://theconversation.com/large-scale-fracking-comes-to-the-arctic-in-a-new-alaska-oil-boom-75683" target="_blank">New discoveries</a> and use of fracking to the west of ANWR suggest there is more accessible petroleum. How much more? It's impossible to say, given the many uncertainties.
</p><p style="">
Though only one well has ever been drilled in the 1002 Area, dozens have been sited in surrounding onshore and offshore areas. These have resulted in a number of limited discoveries and one substantial field, Point Thomson, which is <a href="http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/18399962.shtml" target="_blank">estimated to have recoverable reserves</a> of up to 6 trillion cubic feet of gas and 850 million barrels of oil plus condensate. It <a href="http://www.ogj.com/articles/2016/04/production-begins-at-point-thomson-on-alaska-s-north-slope.html" target="_blank">began producing in 2016</a>, yet its reservoir is geologically complex, challenging and insufficiently understood, <a href="http://www.alaskajournal.com/2017-08-31/state-rejects-point-thomson-expansion-plan#.WjAVfbSFiXQ" target="_blank">causing difficulties and raising costs</a>.
</p><p>
But Point Thomson's larger significance could stem from its location: Close to the northwestern margin of 1002, it has brought a pipeline connection to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline right to ANWR's doorstep.
</p><p style="">
<strong>But Will They Come?</strong>
</p><p style="">
Given the substantial possible reserves and at least some pipeline access, how interested might energy companies actually be in ANWR? The answer for now seems to be: not very. This comes from my own discussions with industry personnel and from the <a href="http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112681-alaska-npr-a-auction-nets-few-bids-conocophillips-tacks-on-acreage" target="_blank">results of a recent lease sale</a> in NPR-A, the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to the west of ANWR: Out of 900 tracts offered, only seven received bids (0.008 percent). A Dec. 7, <a href="http://dog.dnr.alaska.gov/Documents/Leasing/SaleResults/NorthSlope/2017W/NS2017W_ResultsMap.pdf" target="_blank">lease sale on state lands</a> did only somewhat better (0.04 percent), with a single company bidding on tracts near the 1002 Area, adjacent to the Point Thomson field, and in the immediate area of two small, undeveloped discoveries (Sourdough and Yukon Gold) made by BP in 1994.
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If this be any indication, another multiyear period of high oil prices–in a range, say, more than $80 per barrel–needs to arrive before 1002 looks attractive. Leasing and drilling in an area with extreme weather, little detailed data on the subsurface geology, no discoveries or production, and no existing infrastructure is considered high risk, all the more so in an uncertain price environment like today's.
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My own guess is that the <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/costestimate/anwrreconciliation.pdf" target="_blank">estimated</a> $1.1 billion revenue from an ANWR leasing program has roughly the same probability of coming true as the discovery that <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385?lang=en" target="_blank">climate change is indeed a Chinese hoax</a>. Similarly, we should probably view with a dash of skepticism Sen. Murkowski's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/11/16/the-energy-202-anwr-drilling-is-one-step-closer-to-happening/5a0cb93630fb045a2e003064/?utm_term=.7ed908bf3864" target="_blank">statements</a> that opening ANWR will "create thousands of good jobs … keep energy affordable for families and businesses … reduce the federal deficit and strengthen our national security" by reducing foreign oil. Regardless of what claims are being made now, one can say the measure would undoubtedly deliver on a long-standing promise to Alaskan voters.
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Meanwhile, from an environmental perspective, climate change continues to alter and damage the Arctic, even if no development happens. As such, it is hard not to hope that we will never need the oil that lies beneath the refuge.
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In the end, whichever way we turn, no stable compromise exists in this conflict. Opening the area to leasing now will not prevent a closing or ban later on. Even native voices are divided on the issue. The <a href="http://juneauempire.com/opinion/2017-10-01/alaskans-say-yes-anwr-drilling" target="_blank">Inupiat who live in Kaktovik</a> and depend on sea life for sustenance, would welcome the work that drilling could bring, while the Gwich'in to the south, who rely on the caribou, see development as <a href="https://www.adn.com/commentary/article/anwr-wilderness-vital-caribou-gwichin-people-alaska/2015/03/13/" target="_blank">jeopardizing their culture</a>.
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Legal challenges to any level of leasing are certain, including those intended to slow the process until drilling opponents will win later elections, if they can.
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The one truth all can agree on is that ANWR has never been a "refuge" in the landscape of American society.
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<em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-americans-will-never-agree-on-oil-drilling-in-the-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-88992" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
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