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Before leaving the White House, the outgoing president Donald trump seems determined to change the fate ofAlaska and, after removing (a few days before elections) the status of a protected area for the national forest Tongass, one of the largest rainforests in the world, now wants at all costs to sign the start of drilling for oil and gas within the protected area Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the largest of the 16 National Wildlife Refuge Dell ‘Alaska. It is not a place like any other, but the largest national wildlife refuge in the country. It is a wilderness area of approximately 8 million hectares in the northeast corner ofAlaska, remained intact for more than 30 years. There White House He hastens in these hours to publish the requests Of applications (call for nominations) for energy companies interested in buying drilling rights in an area of around 600 thousand hectares. Companies will need to indicate the exact areas where they are interested in exploring underground to find deposits. Times are tight since the new president will take office on January 20, 2021 and Biden (like her deputy, Kamala Harris) has repeatedly voiced her opposition to oil and gas drilling in areas within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
THE FAUNA’S PARADISE – It is a wild area of approximately 8 million hectares in the northeast corner of the country that has remained intact for more than 30 years and home and home, depending on the season, of Bears gray, polar wolves, caribou, alci, birds migratory and others animals wild. The north coast bathed by that part of the Glacial Arctic Sea what is the sea of Beaufort, is characterized by several habitat, like the lagoons and deltas of the rivers that, to the south, cross an immense plain that reaches the Sierra de Brooks Range. Between the peaks, the river valleys are characterized by a very varied vegetation, ranging from poplars to firs towards the south.
A BATTLE THAT LASTS 40 YEARS – A game has been played in that landscape for decades. On the one hand I Republicans, who have tried several times to start the drilling in the coastal area that, according to some studies, would be rich in hydrocarbons, focusing on Economic progress and employment in the area (especially in times of crisis) and have also managed to divide community native. Because if for him Inupiat, a community that lives near the coast, the industry of Petroleum represents the possibility of new jobs, for the Gwich’in living in the south, development represents a risk. On the other front I Democrats, who tried to oppose one deregulation, concerned about the risks of disasters environmental and for the protection of the animal species that populate the area. It has been almost six years since the former president Barack Obama, in January 2015, had stopped any geological study for the exploration of hydrocarbons in those territories, extending theArctic National Wildlife Refuge from 5 to more than 8 million hectares. A couple of years later, however, the White House will come Triumph, with the idea of eliminating the politics environmentalist (and not only that) of its predecessor. At the request of Magnate, in 2017, the Congress from United States gave permission to oil activities in the area and in December 2018 the Office of Territorial Management of the Interior (the Office of Territorial Management) concluded that the drilling it could be done within the coastal plain without harming wildlife.
TRUMP’S MOVES – Last summer, finally, the Department of the Interior gave the green light to drilling and now Triumph have little time to allocate i contracts, but on his side is precisely that act of Congress. Thirty days after the publication of the ‘call for applications’, the administration Triumph must issue a notice for the sale of concessions, a sale that, in turn, must be made within another thirty days. If Trump’s intentions come true, for Biden it can be hard to go back.
THE INTEREST OF COMPANIES – If the intention of the administration is clear Triumph to follow “the policy of energy independence”, it is still not clear, however, the interest that the main actors of theOil industry and gas. In fact, when in recent years there has been the possibility of companies entering into contracts to search for oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, West ofANWRfew have expressed interest. The reasons are different: extreme weather conditions, data available in the geology underground, the lack of infrastructure, uncertain prices and, last but not least, Environmental risks that also remove the banks (some large groups have already announced that they will not fund projects in that area, ed). It is not a case that Chad badgett, director of the Alaska section of the Bureau of Land Management, said how important it is for a successful auction to “get information from the industry on which sections to rent.
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