Gabby Brown, gabby.brown@sierraclub.org, 914-261-4626
Washington, DC -- Today, the Department of the Interior is expected to take the next step toward holding a lease sale in the delicate coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Bureau of Land Management’s “record of decision” will reportedly make the entire coastal plain available for leasing.
The administration has rushed through the review process for drilling in the coastal plain as political appointees at Interior have disregarded or altered the work of career scientists in an effort to accelerate the process and justify drilling in one of America’s last wild places.
When Congressional Republicans pushed through a rider opening the Arctic Refuge for drilling as part of the 2017 tax bill, they claimed that two lease sales in the Refuge would generate $1 billion of revenue, a figure that was questionable even before this year’s oil market chaos. Over the last year, five of the six major American banks -- Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Chase, Citi, and Morgan Stanley -- have recognized that Arctic drilling is a bad investment and joined more than two dozen financial institutions worldwide in updating their lending policies to exclude funding for new drilling in the Arctic, including the Arctic Refuge.
In response, Lena Moffitt, Senior Director of the Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign, released the following statement:
“The Trump administration’s so-called review process for their shameless sell-off of the Arctic Refuge has been a sham from the start. We’ll see them in court.”
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3.5 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.