Stronger protections for the Arctic are not a given.

TAKE ACTION: [link removed]

***********************************************************
Dear Friend,

In a big victory for the Arctic and therefore the planet, the Biden administration canceled a set of illegal leases for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and proposed protections against future fossil fuel development across Alaska’s Arctic lands.

In the Refuge, this helped undo an egregious attack dating all the way back to 2017, when a federal tax bill required oil-and-gas lease sales in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain. The now-canceled leases were issued during the Trump administration, following a hasty lease sale auctioning off this cherished land. Along with the lease cancellation, the Biden administration released a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) considering a new oil and gas leasing plan for the Refuge to replace the Trump plan. This new draft makes important improvements, but there is more to do to protect the Refuge and the climate from drilling.

In addition to protections for the Refuge, the Biden administration also proposed stronger protections for the Western Arctic, helping to safeguard 13 million acres of ecologically significant public lands against harm from oil and gas drilling.

While these new Western Arctic protections are a welcome and hopeful step forward, they still don’t go far enough. The door is still open to the Willow Project and other developments in the Reserve that could extract billions of barrels of oil in the coming years. Companies such as ConocoPhillips still hold leases on more than 2 million acres across this region, and millions more acres remain open to potential future oil and gas leasing in the future.

If this administration is serious about fighting climate change, it must take action to limit new fossil fuel development in the areas of the Reserve that have already been auctioned off to the fossil fuel industry. This should begin with a climate analysis to get a realistic measure of how extracting and burning this Arctic oil would worsen the climate crisis, as a first step toward aligning management of the Reserve with federal commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2030.

Now’s your chance to weigh in. The administration has opened two comment periods – one for the Arctic Refuge and one for the Reserve – and it’s important that it hears from you about the urgency to finalize the Refuge’s protections and develop robust measures to protect the Reserve from future Willow projects.

The stakes for these actions are high. The Arctic represents a critical last refuge for wildlife and provides sustenance and spiritual connection for Indigenous people. Fossil fuel development in this irreplaceable ecosystem spoils habitat, risks oil spills, and unleashes even more climate-wrecking emissions. Earthjustice has advocated for decades in courts and Congress to protect these lands – and, with your help, we’re going to see this fight through until the Arctic is no longer under threat.

Send a message to the Biden administration thanking them for the progress toward protecting the Arctic and urge them to consider the strongest possible protections for this region.

Sincerely,
Erik Grafe
Deputy Managing Attorney

TAKE ACTION: [link removed]

***********************************
(c)2023 Earthjustice | 415-217-2000 | [email protected]
Earthjustice
50 California St., Suite 500
San Francisco, CA 94111
United States

If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please unsubscribe: [link removed] .