“Alaska [is] open for business,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told a cheering crowd at an Alaska Oil and Gas Association conference in Anchorage earlier this year. Any seismic exploration and drilling activities in the refuge are expected to severely affect those bears. More than 90 species of them migrate from five continents and all 50 states to nest and rear their young on that coastal plain. In response to an environmental disaster on such a scale, congressional lawmakers pulled the plug on oil exploration and drilling at the refuge. “Congress must take drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off the table,” Bernadette Demientieff wrote.

Source: Huffington Post November 09, 2017 17:46 UTC