Arctic Refuge drilling controversy
The question of whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been an ongoing political controversy in the United States since 1977. As of 2017, Republicans have attempted to allow drilling in ANWR almost fifty times, finally being successful with the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
ANWR comprises of the north Alaskan coast. The land is situated between the Beaufort Sea to the north, Brooks Range to the south, and Prudhoe Bay to the west. It is the largest protected wilderness in the United States and was created by Congress under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. Section 1002 of that act deferred a decision on the management of oil and gas exploration and development of in the coastal plain, known as the "1002 area". The controversy surrounds drilling for oil in this subsection of ANWR.
Much of the debate over whether to drill in the 1002 area of ANWR rests on the amount of economically recoverable oil, as it relates to world oil markets, weighed against the potential harm oil exploration might have upon the natural wildlife, in particular the calving ground of the Porcupine caribou. In their documentary Being Caribou the Porcupine herd was followed in its yearly migration by author and wildlife biologist Karsten Heuer and filmmaker Leanne Allison to provide a broader understanding of what is at stake if the oil drilling should happen and educating the public. There has been controversy over the scientific reports' methodology and transparency of information during the Trump administration. Although there have been complaints from employees within the Department of the Interior, the reports remain the central evidence for those who argue that the drilling operation will not have a detrimental impact on local wildlife.
On December 3, 2020, the Bureau of Land Management gave notice of sale for the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program in the ANWR with a livestream video drilling rights lease sale scheduled for January 6, 2021. The Trump administration issued the first leases on January 19, 2021. On President Joe Biden's first day in Office, he issued an executive order for a temporary moratorium on drilling activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On June 1, 2021, Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland suspended all Trump-era oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge pending a review of how fossil fuel drilling would impact the remote landscape. On September 6, 2023, the Biden administration cancelled the leases.
As of 2025 by action of President Trump via executive order, the protected refuge has been declared open for oil and gas exploration and exploitation.
This comes after the Biden Administration reversed Trump’s Executive Orders from his first Presidential term. Not only is President Donald Trump reinstating his policy, but he has vowed to re-open an increased number of Alaskan lands than he did in his first presidency to get gas and extract oil.
Trump also aims to expedite the pace at which permits and leases are approved. This is so natural resource projects in Alaska, like developing the state’s liquified natural gas transactional process and transportation to regions of the US and to allies, can be done efficiently and effectively, hence maximizing the advancement of the economy and overall production. This emphasis and focus on the economy potentially puts the environment at risk of worsened pollution and other externalities. But the logistical reasoning by the Trump Administration is that the economic and natural security benefits are ones that the United States can matter-of-factly gain from.
Still, there is opposition in the polarized sphere of environmental policy. The basis for one argument is that communities have already experienced the negative effects of climate change and the imposition of this Executive Order wouldn’t help the thinning sea ice, or the thawing permafrost Alaska is experiencing. These things are also may harm the United States. Additionally, some environmentalist groups have brought suits to court. They are claiming that Trump’s attempts to reverse the previous decisions that barred oil and gas drilling in specific parts of the Arctic waters are unconstitutional. They argue that passage of these enforcements by past Presidents, such as former President Joe Biden, were meant to be, if not permanent, then not easily reversed by a new President. Law challenges continue to persist to question the constitutionality of Trump’s Executive Order that pushes for drilling.
History
20th century
Before Alaska was granted statehood on January 3, 1959, virtually all of the Territory of Alaska was federal land and wilderness. The act granting statehood gave Alaska the right to select for use as an economic and tax base.In 1966, Alaska Natives protested a federal oil and gas lease sale of lands on the North Slope claimed by Natives. Late that year, Secretary of the interior Stewart Udall ordered the lease sale suspended. Shortly thereafter announced a 'freeze' on the disposition of all federal land in Alaska, pending congressional settlement of Native land claims.
These claims were settled in 1971 by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which granted newly created Native Corporations. The act also froze development on federal lands, pending a final selection of parks, monuments, and refuges. The law was set to expire in 1978.
Toward the end of 1976, with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System virtually complete, major conservation groups shifted their attention to how best to protect the hundreds of millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness unaffected by the pipeline. On May 16, 1979, the United States House of Representatives approved a conservationist-backed bill that would have protected more than of federal lands in Alaska, including the calving ground of the nation's largest caribou herd. Backed by President Jimmy Carter, and sponsored by Morris K. Udall and John B. Anderson, the bill would have prohibited all commercial activity in designated as wilderness areas. The U.S. Senate had opposed similar legislation in the past and filibusters were threatened.
On December 2, 1980, Carter signed into law the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which created more than of national parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas from federal holdings in that state. The bill allowed drilling in ANWR, but not without Congress's approval and the completion of an Environmental Impact Study. Both sides of the controversy announced they would attempt to change it in the next session of Congress.
Section 1002 of the act stated that a comprehensive inventory of fish and wildlife resources would be conducted on of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain. Potential petroleum reserves in the 1002 Area were to be evaluated from surface geological studies and seismic exploration surveys. No exploratory drilling was allowed. These studies and recommendations for future management of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain were to be prepared in a report to Congress.
In 1985, Chevron drilled a test bore, known as KIC-1, on a private tract inside the border of ANWR. The well was capped, and the drilling platform, dismantled. The results are a closely held secret.
In November 1986, a draft report by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that all of the coastal plain within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be opened for oil and gas development. It also proposed to trade the mineral rights of in the refuge for surface rights to owned by corporations of six Alaska native groups, including Aleuts, Eskimos and Tlingits. The report said that the oil and gas potentials of the coastal plain were needed for the country's economy and national security.
Conservationists said that oil development would unnecessarily threaten the existence of the Porcupine caribou by cutting off the herd from calving areas. They also expressed concerns that oil operations would erode the fragile ecological systems that support wildlife on the tundra of the Arctic plain. The proposal faced stiff opposition in the House of Representatives. Morris Udall, chairman of the House Interior Committee, said he would reintroduce legislation to turn the entire coastal plain into a wilderness area, effectively giving the refuge permanent protection from development.
On July 17, 1987, the United States and the Canadian government signed the "Agreement on the Conservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd," a treaty designed to protect the species from damage to its habitat and migration routes. Canada has a special interest in the region because its Ivvavik National Park and Vuntut National Park borders the refuge. The treaty required an impact assessment and required that where activity in one country is "likely to cause significant long-term adverse impact on the Porcupine Caribou Herd or its habitat, the other Party will be notified and given an opportunity to consult prior to final decision". This focus on the Porcupine caribou led to the animal becoming a visual rhetoric or symbol of the drilling issue much in the same way the polar bear has become the image of global warming.
In March 1989, a bill permitting drilling in the reserve was "sailing through the Senate and had been expected to come up for a vote" when the Exxon Valdez oil spill delayed and ultimately derailed the process.
In 1996, the Republican-majority House and Senate voted to allow drilling in ANWR, but this legislation was vetoed by President Bill Clinton. Toward the end of his presidential term, environmentalists pressed Clinton to declare the Arctic Refuge a U.S. National Monument. Doing so would have permanently closed the area to oil exploration. While Clinton did create several refuge monuments, the Arctic Refuge was not among them.
A 1998 report by the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that there was between and of technically recoverable oil in the designated 1002 area, and that most of the oil would be found west of the Marsh Creek anticline. The term technically recoverable oil is based on the price per barrel where oil that is more costly to drill becomes viable with rising prices. When non-federal and Native areas are excluded, the estimated amounts of technically recoverable oil are reduced to and. These figures differed from an earlier 1987 USGS report that estimated smaller quantities of oil and that it would be found in the southern and eastern parts of the 1002 area. However, the 1998 report warned that the "estimates cannot be compared directly because different methods were used in preparing those parts of the 1987 Report to Congress".