** Arctic lease sale was epic failure
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Thursday, January 7, 2021
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge | Steve Chase, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ([link removed])
Yesterday the Trump administration auctioned off oil and gas leases ([link removed]) in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, following through on what was meant to be a major gift to the oil and gas industry. But it turns out that Big Oil wasn't interested ([link removed]) .
The oil and gas industry largely ignored the long-awaited lease sale ([link removed]) , leaving an Alaska state agency as the main bidder. The agency put up all but two of the winning bids, which were made by small oil and gas companies. Only eleven tracts were sold, for a total of $14.4 million in revenue ([link removed]) : far less than had originally been estimated. Nearly all of the ecologically valuable land was sold for the minimum price of $25 an acre ([link removed]) .
Jenny Rowland-Shea, a senior policy analyst for public lands at the Center for American Progress, summed up the events by saying ([link removed]) , “[The] lease sale was the logical conclusion to this completely flawed effort: a massive failure. The Trump administration has managed to rip off taxpayers, ignore the rights and voices of the Gwich’in and threaten polar bears and caribou, all to hand the coastal plain over to a couple of wildcatters and a state-owned corporation with no ability to drill.”
The lack of interest from the oil and gas industry was anticipated ([link removed]) , even if unacknowledged by the Trump administration. Drilling in such a remote part of Alaska would have been inconvenient and expensive, not to mention toxic in the public eye. Many major banks also vowed not to finance such drilling, complicating any potential development efforts by an industry that faced a downward spiral over the course of 2020.
Although the refuge is important habitat for polar bears and migrating caribou and birds, representing one of the last large intact landscapes in the United States, President Trump has made opening the refuge a centerpiece ([link removed]) of his failed energy dominance agenda ([link removed]) . President-elect Biden has vowed to permanently protect the refuge. Although he has little power to revoke issued leases, the incoming administration does have a number of options for blocking permits ([link removed]) that would be required to develop the region.
Quick hits
** How Biden could get NPS focused on climate and science
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E&E News ([link removed])
** EPA notes significant concerns in draft mine review
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S&P Global ([link removed])
** Tribes protest major drilling plans in northeastern Wyoming
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Casper Star-Tribune ([link removed])
** Colorado is behind on targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. How far should the state push industry to get there?
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Colorado Sun ([link removed])
** Colorado wants to help after coal leaves town. It’s going to take time. And a lot of money.
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Colorado Sun ([link removed])
** New Mexican economists warn state to change course, shift away from boom and bust oil economy
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Capital & Main ([link removed]) | Carlsbad Current-Argus ([link removed])
** Oil and gas dealmaking peaks in Q4 as pandemic spurs consolidation
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Reuters ([link removed])
** Trashed bathrooms, discarded masks, broken sleds: Revelers make a mess in the mountains
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Los Angeles Times ([link removed])
Quote of the day
After years of promising a revenue and jobs bonanza they ended up throwing a party for themselves, with the state being one of the only bidders. We have long known that the American people don't want drilling in the Arctic Refuge, the Gwich'in people don't want it, and now we know the oil industry doesn't want it either."
—Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, E&E News ([link removed])
Picture this
** @Interior ([link removed])
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Desert National Wildlife Refuge reminds us that there's nothing like a wide view of the sky #nevada ([link removed])
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