Trump officials rush to auction off rights to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can..

[DonViejo]

Source: Washington Post



Trump officials rush to auction off rights to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can block it

Officials aim to sell drilling rights to iconic wilderness’ coastal plain before Joe Biden takes office

By Juliet Eilperin
November 16, 2020 at 11:14 a.m. EST

The Trump administration has called for oil and gas firms to pick spots where they’d like to drill on Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it races to open the pristine wilderness to development and lock in drilling rights before president-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The “call for nominations” to be published Tuesday allows companies to identify tracts they’d like to bid on during an upcoming lease sale on the refuge’s nearly 1.6-million acre coastal plain, which the Interior Department aims to hold before Biden takes the oath of office in January. The move would be a capstone of President Trump’s efforts to open up public lands to logging, mining and grazing — something Biden strongly opposes.

Trump's rolled back more than 125 environmental policies. Another 40 rollbacks are underway.

A GOP-controlled Congress in 2017 authorized drilling on the refuge, a vast wilderness home to tens of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl, along with polar bears and Arctic foxes.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/16/arctic-refuge-drilling-trump/

[Yonnie3]

1. Got to take care of their corporate sponsors

Don

[woodsprite]

2. Wonder if Putin will buy any. nt

[Cirque du So-What]

3. From the article:

Several environmental groups are challenging the administration’s overall oil and gas leasing program for the refuge in four separate lawsuits. If one of those challenges prevails, it could effectively void the leases.

One in four. If all four lawsuits fail, it's a fucking travesty that must be rectified.

[Mike 03]

4. From September: 15 states sue to stop drilling plan for Arctic Refuge

15 states sue to stop drilling plan for Arctic Refuge

https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/09/10/15-states-sue-to-stop-drilling-plan-for-arctic-refuge/

[iluvtennis]

8. So happy there are lawsuits pending. This is disgusting. nt

[moreland01]

30. Trying to look at the bright side.

I'm going to assume that the lawsuits are going to take a while to process through the system. Hopefully, they will be ongoing well in to Joe Biden's administration. If that's the case, can't his administration just cancel the program before it ever gets implemented. In other words, cave to the lawsuits? If the new Administration won't defend the program in court against the environmental group's actions, then the programs are defacto defuncto, right?

[Happy Hoosier]

5. We need some lawsuits to gum up the works...

Until Biden can cancel this bullshit.

[Mike 03]

6. "Tom DeLay once said if we could drill in ANWR it will break the back of the environmental lobby."

also, "the rush to drill here seems to have been more about politics than economics."

New Day, July 2018. From CNN Transcript:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1807/24/nday.04.html

We really have to stop this.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

19. The Arctic National Wildlife Reserve is largest untouched land in the U.S.

If it is raped by drilling companies, they'll use that as a reason to permit drilling in national parks and other protected lands. "You let us drill in ANWR..."

So much of the damage Trump has done will take decades to undo. Fuck Trump. Fuck the GOP. Fuck MAGAts.

I hope Trump has a COVID relapse and spends his remaining years on a ventilator.

[Maraya1969]

7. I hope it all backfires on him just like all his other attempts at anything have

recently.

Maybe any company that puts a bid in should be sued privately - not sure what for yet but others are more creative.

[Bayard]

9. This can't be allowed to happen.

Any company that buys into it is going to be sorely disappointed and foolish.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. ROLLBACK

If Walmart can do it, why can't the U.S. Government?

[SWBTATTReg]

11. Hopefully, demand for these won't materialize, due to the excess oil inventory on the markets

today, being that the world economy is so messed up today w/the CoronaVirus epidemic.

There's already a pretty big glut on world markets for oil, they are running out of tankers to put excess oil into.

[machoneman]

12. Weird move. Even the bidders know that Biden can easily roll this all back before...

..any equipment, let alone drilling, can be moved in. More likely, court challenges will delay any efforts to actually drill....and by that time, Joe will be in office.

I will guess though that somehow Trumpy will personally benefit, maybe cash under the table, for making this move. 'Course he'll easily get caught here if true as they are the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight! Or, a Ship of Fools where Rudy is the captain!

[usaf-vet]

33. Trump has to have figured out a way he can grift and make money on this. HE is broke and in debt.

That why he was so desperate to win a second term.

[geomon666]

13. Biden's gotta do this:

[yuiyoshida]

23. I suspect even

DARTH VADER thinks TRUMP is a dick...

[geomon666]

32. Oh he would've force choked that chump a long time ago

in a galaxy far, far away.

[LogicFirst]

14. Alaska voters approved this when they voted red.

[Sierra89]

18. True.

Unfortunate, but true.

[OhioTim]

15. Play Tough

Close any federal roads to the refuge. Inform bidders that the will forfeit any federal help as companies in terms of infrastructure, tax breaks etc.

[FM123]

16. Trump is like a paid hit-man that will assassinate anything for money. Even our planet.

[pazzyanne]

17. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is an ecologically fragile area.

If the rape of this area is allowed to happen, the area may never recover and so much will be lost forever. No money is worth losing this unique land. I can only pray that it doesn't happen, and that those that are doing this are appropriately punished - for the rest of their miserable lives.

[bucolic_frolic]

20. The fruition of the Secret Cheney Energy Task Force

Don't let anyone fool you this is just Trump. This is a long term plan of thievery and irresponsible stewardship against ANWR which was set aside by Senate vote in the Eisenhower Administration.

[Thekaspervote]

21. Big oil is not keen on drilling there. Oil glut, to hard to get at..just not that profitable

[yuiyoshida]

22. These REPUBLICANS are evil....

No one should ever join their party again. Start a NEW PARTY...you're party deserves to just die.

[SayItLoud]

24. Follow the $ and it will lead to some companies that tRUMP has his piece of AND

Others that will help pay off that $400 million personal debt coming due !

[Bigredhunk]

25. -

[Ziggysmom]

26. I don't understand. Why does tRumpy hate wildlife & animals so much?

The only wildlife loving he does is grabbing women by the puzzy

[PoliticAverse]

27. "The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury". n/t

[bronxiteforever]

28. The GOP hates the natural world. All they do is destroy.

[cstanleytech]

29. Surely Biden and his administration can reverse this.

[truthisfreedom]

31. You'd think a guy that hates wind turbines so much

Wouldn’t be so in love with oil derricks.

[Mendocino]

35. Everything he touches dies!

He also after uranium mining in the Grand Canyon and the metal exploration in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in Minnesota.

[modrepub]

36. 2 Problems With This Approach

First, I'd be wary of any lease this administration put together in haste. There's bound to be some administrative slip up that will be tied up in court making the lease a money suck.

Second, a lease only allows you to extract the oil. It doesn't cover any permitting costs or cover all of the costs to develop the oil field. Developing an oil field in the Arctic is expensive. We probably talking many tens of billions of dollars. Oil companies, if you haven't heard, are not the financial juggernauts they used to be. A lot of oil companies have gone bankrupt or dropped off the main stock indexes. They will have difficulty pledging their stock as collateral and most banks will increase their lending interest rates to offset the chance that the oil field won't pan out.

Bottom line, they can have the leases. But they're taking a chance this maladministration screwed up on the lease guaranteeing themselves years of litigation. And in the end, they probably don't have the financing to develop the field any time in the near future.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

37. Donny's grab and dash

[sinkingfeeling]

38. If MF45 can pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, then Biden can cancel the sales.