Oil and gas extraction activities will be permitted across more than 600,000 hectares of Alaska's coastal plains. This was established by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which published its final environmental impact assessment giving the green light to drilling in Alaska's protected area; land lease contracts with oil companies will proceed through to the end of the year.

"Today's announcement is a major step forward in fulfilling the clear mandate we received from Congress to develop and implement a leasing programme for the Coastal Plain — a programme that the people of Alaska have been seeking for more than 40 years," Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in a statement.

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The Trump administration on Thursday said it would seek to open up the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration.
There’s a giveaway to industry nearly every day in the Trump administration.
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A serious threat to Alaska's ecosystem

Last week, Democrats passed a bill to halt the mandate, but its chances of passing the Senate are fairly slim. "There are some places too wild, too important and too unique to be spoiled by the development activities of the oil and gas industry. The coastal plain of the Arctic refuge is one of those special places," said Jared Huffman, the California Democrat who wrote the bill, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. "The administration has trampled on science, silencing dissent and excluding entire indigenous communities," said Adam Kolton of the Alaska Wilderness League.

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A decision that will worsen the effects of climate change

According to Garett Rose, attorney for the Alaska project at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), "This sham review illegally opens the entire Alaskan coastal plain to leasing with an enormous impact on the natural system. It violates what is sacred ground and a source of livelihood for the Gwich'in people, one of Alaska's indigenous peoples." The NRDC announced its intention to challenge the environmental impact assessment in court. The environmental impact assessment appears to disregard reality: the document states that global warming is cyclical rather than a consequence of human activity — a theory in complete disagreement with the position of the scientific community.

The BLM estimated that oil and gas extraction on Alaska's plains would emit the equivalent of the greenhouse gases produced by one million new cars on the road. However, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which reviewed a project, the BLM drastically underestimated the environmental impact, as reported by Scientific American.

"The vast majority of Americans want this sacred area protected, and within hours of Congress acting, the Trump administration is moving with reckless haste to destroy it," said Rose.

The reaction of environmentalists

Environmentalists immediately pushed back: the area in question is home to polar bear dens and is the place where caribou come to give birth. As if that were not enough, drilling operations will almost certainly force indigenous populations — who depend on wildlife for their subsistence through hunting and fishing — to migrate to other areas.