WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate is about to vote on a resolution to toss ex-President Biden’s limits on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and ensure nothing like it is imposed again.
The measure would expand the area available for leasing to the entire coastal plain of the refuge, in the northeast corner of Alaska. It is part of a strategy to dismantle Biden’s environmental legacy, much of which took place in Alaska, the state with the most federal land.
The sponsor of the repeal, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, described it as removing Biden’s barriers to resource development in Alaska.
“We opposed their central Yukon Resource Management Plan, their integrated activity plan for our National Petroleum Reserve, and their decision to shut down any potential development on a very small part of the coastal plain,” she said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Congress and the Trump administration have already nullified the Biden limits on leasing in the Arctic Refuge. But the latest nullification method uses the Congressional Review Act. That means a future president could not impose substantially similar limits without an act of Congress.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., spoke against the resolution. An outdoorsman who has travelled to the region, Heinrich described the refuge as a breathtaking wilderness that’s vital for hundreds of species of birds and wildlife.
““The Arctic Refuge is the crown jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System, and it belongs to every single American,” he said. “It deserves our protection.”
Market forces may, in effect, provide that protection. No major oil companies bid when the first Trump administration held an ANWR lease sale in 2021. A lease sale during the Biden administration, with more restrictive conditions imposed, drew no bids at all.
The resolution cleared a Senate procedural vote largely along party lines Wednesday, with only Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, crossing the aisle to vote with Democrats. It’s expected to pass the Senate on a final vote Thursday. The House has already passed an identical resolution so it would go next to the president for signature.
