Alaska Native leaders are slamming President Joe Biden’s plan to restrict oil development across 13 million acres of the western Arctic, saying the administration ignored Indigenous protest.
The Interior Department said its final rule, announced Friday, will protect the wildlife and ecosystem in the oil-rich National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the largest swath of public land in the country. Its mandate that the Bureau of Land Management mitigate the damages of drilling could be used to thwart oil and gas proposals in the reserve’s most protected areas.
The rule follows a rush of conservation announcements from the White House in recent days as it woos environmental voters ahead of the November presidential election. But the oil plan has sparked anger and frustration from Alaskans who say they were “stonewalled” when they attempted to meet with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland about the proposed rule last year.
“The Department of the Interior seems to believe that they care about this land more than we do,” said North Slope Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak in a statement Friday. “The elected leaders of the North Slope spoke in unison in opposition to this rule and the rulemaking process. To refuse to listen to our voices is to say that you know better.”
