The Trump administration on Monday took another step to opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil and gas, potentially fulfilling a decades-long dream for Republicans. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt signed the Record of Decision, which will determine a program for where oil and gas leasing will take place in the refuge's coastal plain. The Democratic-controlled U.S. House voted in September 2019 to reinstate the decades-long ban on oil and gas drilling in ANWR. An airplane flies over caribou from the Porcupine Caribou Herd on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. The decision makes the entire coastal plan area, or 8 per cent of the 19.3-million-acre refuge, available for oil and gas leasing and potential development.

Source: CBC News August 17, 2020 16:52 UTC