Bernhardt said a future lease of the state-owned land would make available the entire 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain area.
Bernhardt said the announcement “marks a new chapter in American energy independence” and predicted that it could “create thousands of new jobs.”
Drilling in these controversial areas of Arctic Alaska has long been controversial. A 2017 law required the department to maintain two lease sales until 2024. A date for that sale has not yet been set, Bernahrdt said.
Alaskan Republican lawmakers, sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski and rep. Don Young, praised the decision.
“This is a turning point in our decades-long push to enable the responsible development of a small portion of Alaska’s 1002 area,” Murkowski said in a statement Monday. “Through this program, we will build on our already strong record of an ever-minimal footprint for responsible resource development.”
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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