Trump administration opens protected Alaskan region for oil leasing
US President Donald Trump’s administration announced on Monday that it has made final its plan to open up vast areas of once-protected Arctic Alaska territory to oil development.
The US Bureau of Land Management released its plan for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), a 23 million-acre swath of land on the western North Slope. The record, signed by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on December 21, allows lease sales to proceed under relaxed standards.
The decision is one of a number of pro-drilling actions taken by the Trump administration in its final days. On Wednesday, the bureau is scheduled to auction off drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the eastern North Slope.
