Interior Dept. Takes Next Step Toward Sale of Drilling Leases in Arctic Refuge

Good article. Permafrost releases methane, which traps 80 times more heat than carbon. Russia. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/permafrost-everything-you-need-know#sec-impacts According to a link in the piece, the tundra sinks. Get the maps into the records, please,to make sure the part that Congress didn’t protect doesn’t mysteriously morph into a distorted map, which the Interior Secretary can conveniently bully the BLM and Geological Survey to vouch for. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science

This is wrong on every level. Keep calling your representatives. Stop this insanity and the wanton attacks against the environment and animals by this craven administration and completely corrupted republican senate.

I’ve got a great idea! Trump, his cronies, and the EPA can further increase their piggy banks by selling hunting licenses, maybe a few million a polar bear(?).Shooting them from helicopters, as was done with wolves, or from miles away with a high-powered rifle or assault weapon for bad shooters or multiple animals for bribes, gifts or a museum-like diorama, these men of the wilderness can stuff this miracle of nature and plop it in the entryway of one of their mansions, telling their friends how brave they were and how exciting it was to face down this largest bear in the world that appeared only as a white-on-white moving blob from their vantage point miles away. Maybe one per mansion, as excess for the elite, if not always obvious, is surely most visible now. The beauty of this money-maker is clear. Trump gains popularity from those who count—the NRA, his minions, and his only non-$ supporters, workers, or out-of-workers, who will see bringing back hazardous coal-mining as the next logical step to destructive drilling.They think America will be a great country again, and see themselves as prosperous participants who at last have their dignity back. Trump knew how to catch their dreams with promises that synced with his own goals. Meanwhile, with the ice cleared of all of those all those pesky bears people were fussing about (along with everyone and everything in this ecosystem), why not drill more? I forget, is all this ice melting good or bad for the drilling?

Big Oil better wait until November 2020 before tearing up and polluting this refuge.

Show of hands: Outside the members of Republican and oil/gas aristocracy, Is there a single person who is in favor of this? This story, along with the one about the devastation to be wreaked by Trump's wall slammimg through the Organ Pipe desert on the southern border, are just too difficult to read.

This man is undeserving of the presidency and yet, here he is with all the power to undo protections that were wisely created to protect what is irreplaceable. Trump has done in these few years what will take generations to fix, if it even can be fixed, as the consequences are so destructive. If he has another four years to ramrod through more environmental damage, I can't imagine the outcome, but it will certainly be irrevocable and tragic. Republicans could stop this, but they seem to have offered up their moral judgment as sacrifice to ambition and the sycophancy it requires to fulfill it. How do they sleep at night?

Every Democratic presidential candidate should declare that, if elected, he or she will void all new leases in the coastal plain of Alaska, if that can be done legally, and if not, will take them back through eminent domain. That will create enough risk and uncertainty to keep most would-be developers away. (A similar policy should be adopted for development in Bears Ears.) Hardball? Yes, but unfortunately, there is no other way to prevent Hurricane Donald and his henchmen from continuing their assault on the environment, enriching the few, and endangering the rest of us.

Sadly yet unfortunately not surprising. Alaska’s State coffers have long been funded by oil and gas revenue, but funds are being rapidly depleted due to drop in prices. Alaska has no income or sales tax. Instead, the state actually pays its residents annually from a special state fund. Governor Dunleavy (a Republican) was elected on his promise to increase the annual payment from $1,600 to $3,000 per person per year. So to me this move by Trump’s Department of the Interior goes hand in hand with the governor’s campaign promise. Start extracting new oil and gas and money starts flowing to Alaska again. Trump wins support from gas and oil companies as well as Dunleavy and his supporters.

I learned in the 80s, what is at stake here. Drilling in ANWR Could yield 18 months of oil for the U.S. What it will definitely yield is the destruction of the food source for native peoples called Inuit. The caribou herds the Inuit in Canada have relied on for food and clothing for many generations, have their calving grounds in ANWR. So once again, Trump chooses short term gain for fossil fuel companies with no regard for what it will do to the environment and to an entire Native culture.

Insanity, to explore for oil in today’s world is nothing less than criminal.

Republican voters don't care about the environment or any animals. They believe those things were put here to be used and abused by us and God elected Donald Trump. Does it even matter what the rest of is think? It sure doesn't seem like it.

I wish more adorable pictures of wildlife in the region were included in this heartbreaking article. Any time I see a photo like this one of three polar bears messing around or a dog or puppy or kitten or cat or horse, I stop in my tracks and immediately read the story. Maybe more incredible pictures could actually shame these horrific greedy people or make them feel guilty for destroying the only environment they know and live in. I wish this article was on the front page of the NYT instead of some celebrity who got off easy for bribing someone to help her daughter take the SAT exams.

Now is the time for actions to save our planet for our descendants. Maybe a boycott of oil and gas companies as well as all Trump properties will wake somebody up.

Vast sums of money to permanently despoil a large tract of wilderness on the off chance that there might be 18 months worth of oil below? No wonder the architect of this travesty lost money running a casino. And to think that the same little man is cutting the program that would have made vehicles more fuel efficient and reduced the need for this oil in the first place. Two sandwiches short of a picnic is the nicest way I can think of to explain it.

It grieves me to see this because there is every indication we will must stop burning fossil fuels very soon if not now. What a heedless damning action by the President, there is no future for our children in a unlivable world.

"The administration, Republicans in Congress and lawmakers in Alaska have used that estimate to argue for opening the refuge, saying the coastal plain could reduce energy imports …" This is just not a valid reason for raping our planet. In 2018, we imported about 2 million barrels per day more than we exported: 10 million imported/day to 8 million/day exported. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6 We can reduce energy imports by just not exporting our oil (and not turning so much oil and gas into plastics, roads, etc... ) Also, with planning and government support, oil and gas businesses and jobs can move into sustainable energy, and we can save a small piece of what's left of our pristine natural world and stop destroying the planet. Global Climate Strike Sept. 20-27 https://globalclimatestrike.net/

everytime i see trump and his goons gunning for our beautiful environment, a feel a lot of pain. sue. sue. and sue again until we get him out in 13 1/2 months.

Why are Republicans in your country called "conservatives"? Because they never conserve anything. They destroy everything.

Why is this a surprise? There isn’t a Republican alive that wouldn’t be willing to slaughter every living creature and destroy every pristine natural habitat on the planet in order to make a buck. Not a one. Greed tops everything in this country. Everything.

This headline made me cry. Why is no one stopping Trump? He is destroying the planet and no one seems to care. No one is trying to stop him. Where is the religious right? Don’t they love and honor God’s earth? Or is it the almighty dollar they pray to? such an unhappy thing. We’re doomed. My children, my grandchildren. I am powerless.

Monetizing the arctic is the basic response of the Republican administration rather than to cope in a meaningful way with climate change. What a surprise.

Drilling in the ANWR would be an awful travesty that we must not allow to happen. ANWR is truly an ecological jewel, and once destroyed it is irreplaceable—the thought of defiling one of the planet’s last truly pristine wild places for crass profit makes me ill. The north slope is already reeling from the effects of climate change, placing many species such as Polar bears at grave risk in our lifetime. Humanity can and must do better than this.

I suppose that if you are a President striving both to accelerate the pace of climate change and to lock-in higher temperatures and a big sea level rise and also to do that at the same time that most of the world at least gives lip service to doing the opposite, you would want to have as many fossil fuel resources as possible under your national control that could be used to thwart the will of the rest of the world. Now may be the only time to line those resources up and to prepare to use them in the cause.

Some day we'll regret constantly putting human needs ahead of the environment.

This travesty and many other environmental violations of what is best for the future are a result of Democrats being too critical of Hillary Clinton to vote so they stayed home. So it's not Clinton who lost it is all of us who care about our planet. And it could happen again in 2020. The GOP is not interested in governing they are interested in ruling over the country with Trump as their king. Democrats need to deal with reality which is that the perfect candidate might not show up - lots of Democrats had issues with Obama before he got elected. Voting is what you do if you want to stop the destruction of the USA and the planet which means Trump and Moscow Mitch have to be replaced. If you want the perfect candidate for president get a life and deal with the repercussions of not voting.

What if the contenders for the Democratic Presidential nomination declared that this auction of leases would be declared null and void by the next president - a Democrat (we hope!) Can we live in hope that all the harm that POTUS continues to do to the environment can be reversed?

Trump, who appears to value highly only himself, his family and money, is set to despoil a relatively pristine part of the earth. We must stop him. Contact your legislators and anyone else you believe has some political power and try to stop this travesty.

ask Shell Oil about drilling up there. 8 billion dollars and not a single barrel.

Let's see....destroy one of the last wild places on earth and actually the only untouched wild lands in the US all for $5 million a year of 'profit', are we crazy???? 5 Million added to the coffers of the government is about the same in value as a bag of potato chips from the deli would be to you or me. Trump loves to destroy, that's all the excites him and we just stand by and let him do it.

And the oil and gas companies contributed how much to the GOP in the last four years? If they view the contributions as investments, then they have finally received a nice return. Undoubtedly they have already made commitments for next year's races to help their accomplices do well at the polls. Of course there is the Trump theory behind this. We will need all of that oil and gas to provide the power necessary for our return to the old inefficient light bulbs and gas-guzzling vehicle engines.

As the use of EV's increases throughout the planet (China and Europe mandated, and hopefully CA and other forward thinking states won't be bushwacked by trump), shouldn't the need for oil decrease? and as a result shouldn't the coat per barrel keep going down making the drilling nonprofitable? And to that I add every major vehicle manufacturer has stated that they will be introducing more EVs into their line up. Oh, I forgot, the people appointed to protect the environment and associated like minded agencies are being run by the very folk who have worked for the corporations who seek to dismember those agencies and regulations. So it probably doesn't matter how much oil we will actually need. "Milo Minderbinder Enterprises" at it best.

I care more about polar bears than celebrities. Let us do something about it.

The US is currently the largest EXPORTER of oil. Why in the world would we drill in this pristine area only to export it. Sounds like the definition of a bargain: Something you don’t need at a price you can’t resist.

This is a TRAVESTY! Innocence lost is NEVER regained! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE write your protest to your representatives and senators. Speak up. Be heard.

We must stop this from happening.

Irreparable damage of a pristine, fragile ecosystem all for 18 months worth of US oil consumption? In what world is that at all worth it??