The US Department of the Interior has suspended oil and gas leases in Alaska’s 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in order to investigate the environmental impacts of drilling in the region, as per the National Environmental Policy Act. It’s doing so on the grounds that the Trump administration did not follow proper procedures when it bulldozed through a last-minute oil and gas auction before Donald Trump left office.
In the auction, held on January 6, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority put up seven out of nine bids (the other two went to a couple of small energy firms).
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