Huffman Statement on Interior Department Plan to Offer Oil and Gas Leases in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

August 17, 2020

San Rafael, CA – Today, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is expected to approve a plan to offer oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), Chair of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, released the following statement: 

“Just days after the latest reports of widespread conflicts of interest at the Department of the Interior, the Trump administration is insisting on a rushed plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development based on flawed and politicized science,” said Rep. Huffman. “Among the many threats from this ill-conceived plan to industrialize one of the last remaining pieces of American wilderness is that it will disrupt the calving grounds of Porcupine caribou herds that Alaska Natives have depended on since time immemorial. Through the work of political insiders and well-connected special interests, Trump officials have overruled and ignored the science demonstrating the dangers posed to mother polar bears and their cubs from oil and gas development. That’s why the House of Representatives has repeatedly passed legislation to protect the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge. Trump and his industry cronies are escalating the assault on this special place, and they should be ready for Congress and the American people to defend it.”

Rep. Huffman is a leader in the fight to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Last September, his bill, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act, passed the House of Representatives. This bill repeals a controversial provision tucked into the 2017 Trump tax law that mandated oil and gas leasing and production in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Most recently, he led fellow senior House Natural Resources Committee members in sending a letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, the former oil and gas lobbyist, expressing their strong opposition to oil and gas lease sales on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, citing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s legally insufficient Biological Opinion pertaining to the oil and gas leasing program on the Coastal Plain, which would further threaten endangered polar bears. Following that letter, Rep. Huffman introduced the Polar Bear Cub Survival Act. The bill would safeguard polar bears by prohibiting oil and gas activities from impacting maternal denning habitat on the coastal plain of Arctic Refuge.

  

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