Senate votes to strip protections from Arctic Refuge

Following a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives last month, the U.S. Senate voted today to sell out our national public lands for industrial profit by passing a Congressional Review Act resolution to repeal the Biden-era oil and gas leasing program for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

 

The oil industry’s allies in Congress have criticized the plan for its inclusion of conservation measures and limits on drilling on the sensitive coastal plain of the refuge, which is one of the wildest landscapes left in America. Today’s vote makes it easier for industry to lease, develop and irreparably harm those lands without safeguards for wildlife, fish, or local subsistence needs.

 

The Wilderness Society released the following statement from Alaska Senior Manager Meda DeWitt:

 

“The Trump administration and the oil industry’s congressional allies are stripping away safeguards that were put in place to ensure that future generations of Alaskans can inherit  land, waters and wildlife that sustain our communities. These places are not abstract landscapes — they are living homelands that sustain the cultures, food security, and ways of life for Gwich’in, Iñupiat, and others.  

 

“Alaska’s Peoples should be free to nourish their families and uphold their responsibilities to the land without being forced to defend their very right to exist. Yet the administration’s ongoing attacks on fair, science-based, and community-centered policies in the Arctic instead treat Alaskan lives and Indigenous homelands as expendable in the pursuit of industrial gain.”