‌
Your voice is needed.
The proponents of extraction are ignoring ecological values, Indigenous food security and cultural values, the climate crisis, and the extinction crisis. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is off limits. It’s all “open for business”...     

-Subhankar Banerjee and Lois Epstein in The Fight for Alaska's Arctic Has Just Begun
For decades, Alaskans have been working to protect the most culturally and ecologically sensitive areas of the Arctic from development. From the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge to Teshekpuk Lake, the Colville River and the Utukok Uplands, Alaska’s Arctic is a place of incredible diversity, abundance, and tradition of use by local communities. What took decades of work to protect is being rapidly unravelled by the Trump Administration. Despite the longest government shutdown in our history, the Bureau of Land Management continues to work to roll back protections for our Arctic at the behest of development interests.

These decades of work to ensure the most vibrant Arctic future possible is under threat right now.

Under the banner of “energy dominance”, the Trump Administration has been working to systematically roll back all of these layers of protection across the entirety of our Arctic. Your voice is needed! Speak up now for the National Petroleum Reserve and for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The government shutdown continues, preventing the public from meaningfully participating in the public review process. With numerous overlapping proposals, it is hard to know where to focus. Here are two discrete opportunities to make your voice heard.
Western Arctic
The National Petroleum Reserve Alaska Integrated Activity Plan (NPR-A IAP) is being rewritten to allow more drilling in areas that were recognized decades ago as containing extraordinary wildlife, habitat, and subsistence resources. Emphasis is being put on the Teshekpuk Lake special area and the Colville River special area as interest in oil resources underlying them has grown. The comment period ends January 22nd.


A good source of additional information on the Western Arctic can be found here .

Submit written comments via:

Online in ePlanning (Click on the Comment Button next to the Notice of Intent)

By e-mail: Stephanie Rice, at [email protected] ( Please cc [email protected] in your online comments!)

or by mail:
NPR-A IAP/EIS Scoping Comments
222 West 7th Avenue, Mailstop #13
Anchorage, AK 99513
Arctic Refuge
In December 2017, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowksi attached a rider to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to open the Arctic Refuge to oil development. This tactic precluded public comment and only required a simple majority to pass, which it did. BLM is now tasked with developing a leasing program on an accelerated timeline. Released right before the government shutdown, the Draft EIS for oil leasing on the Coastal Plain is currently up for public review. You only have until February 11 to comment on this draft. There will also be public hearings in several Alaskan communities and Washington D.C., with dates T.B.D.


Submit your comments by February 11:


By e-mail to Nicole Hayes: [email protected] ( Please cc [email protected] in online comments).

By mail:
Attn: Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program EIS
222 West 7th Avenue, Stop #13
Anchorage, Alaska 99513

In Person: watch this site for meeting times and dates. Meetings to be scheduled in Anchorage, Arctic Village, Fairbanks, Kaktovik, Fort Yukon, Venetie, and Utqiagvik, Alaska, and Washington, D.C.
Further Action
If you have time and energy, there is more you can do.

  • Write a letter to the editor. No matter where you are in the U.S., these public lands are your public lands. Let your community know why you care about what happens in America’s Arctic and that they have the opportunity to comment. Help lift this veil of secrecy!

  • Hold our elected officials accountable. In this new congress, Representative Grijalva and others are seeking to introduce legislation to repeal the Arctic Refuge leasing mandate from the 2017 Tax Act and to restore protections to the Refuge. Let your congressperson know this is an issue that matters to you.

  • Watch out for an alert for seismic exploration in the Arctic Refuge. This is being handled as a separate Environmental Assessment (BLM) and Incidental Take Regulation (USFWS). There will be a mandatory comment period. We will send further information about what this means and why it matters.

As always, please contact Arctic program coordinator Ryan Marsh at [email protected] or 907-452-5098 if you need any additional information.
MISSION
The Northern Alaska Environmental Center promotes conservation of the environment and sustainable resource stewardship in Interior and Arctic Alaska through education and advocacy.