When the government launches a project like a new highway or oil pipeline, NEPA requires them to consider how it will affect the environment and local communities. It gives the people who will have to live with the consequences a fair chance to weigh in on it. If all goes according to the Trump plan, seismic permitting may be finalized and an Arctic Refuge lease sale will be held just days before Biden takes office. While time may run out before the Trump administration is actually able to turn drilling rights over to the highest bidder, any leases that are issued could be challenging for the new administration to overturn.Ī core Trump administration principle, or so it seems: polluters and corporate interests should have more freedom to exploit the environment, and we should have a harder time slowing them down. Repeated attempts to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) have been key to implementing that doctrine. That’s despite indications that even the usual industry backers are uneasy about violating this culturally and ecologically important land (a number of major banks have announced they will not fund any new oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge). 6, 2021, two weeks before President-elect Biden’s inauguration, even as the agency is still reviewing “nominations” from oil companies about which areas of the refuge they’d like to invade. The Bureau of Land Management just recently announced it will auction off drilling rights in the refuge on Jan. Seismic vibrator trucks that are used for oil & natural gas explorationĪnd here’s “dirty”: All this is meant to pave the way for the final, reckless push of the Trump administration’s efforts to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic. The tests are likely to disturb wildlife (research from earlier this year suggests that despite promises by the applicant company to avoid harming polar bears in the area, dens can’t be detected reliably enough to avoid damaging them and threatening the mothers and cubs within). Representatives of the Gwich’in people, who rely on the coastal plain and the Porcupine caribou herd it harbors each summer, have criticized this headlong rush. Bernadette Demientieff, the executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, said the hastiness of the process was “ insulting to our people” and undertaken despite leaders repeatedly raising concerns to the Trump administration. Representatives of the Gwich’in people, who rely on the coastal plain and the Porcupine caribou herd it harbors each summer, have criticized the rush toward oil and gas exploration. Here’s “destructive”: Under the proposal, heavy “thumper trucks” will cover hundreds of miles of the fragile landscape, blasting acoustic waves into the ground to capture data that will be used to build a model of subsurface oil and natural gas deposits. These seismic surveys will leave a grid of tracks gouged into the tundra and other surfaces (In recent years, tracks were still visible from the last time seismic testing was allowed in the refuge, back in the 1980s). Less than two weeks before the election, the Trump Bureau of Land Management put out a permit application to allow seismic exploration on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. But that anodyne term doesn’t capture the reality of this destructive, dirty process. These are some of the biggest anti-conservation attacks we’re worried about, and preparing to rebuff, during the lame-duck period of the Trump presidency. lands and waters and ensure all people can access and benefit from public lands. But first we need to hold the line against Trump’s lame-duck attacks, whether through litigation, working with Congress or in the court of public opinion. We’re hopeful about the next four years. The Biden administration should offer many opportunities to confront climate change conserve U.S. 20, they are adding to that count and cementing as many existing attacks as possible to make it harder for President-elect Joe Biden and other lawmakers to undo the damage.īetween now and Inauguration Day, Trump will try to cement as many environmental attacks as possible to make it harder for President-elect Joe Biden and other lawmakers to undo the damage The Trump administration has already infamously rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. That’s certainly true when it comes to conservation. As an ousted lame-duck, President Trump has an unusually high capacity for wreaking havoc on the nation and democracy itself. Unencumbered by the need to govern or win over voters, myopic in the extreme, he is using a flurry of executive orders, among other tactics, to leave deep wounds that won’t easily heal.
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