Trump finalizes plan to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling

The Donald Trump administration finalized plans Monday to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the world’s last pristine wilderness regions, to oil and fracked gas drilling.

The Arctic refuge is rich in biodiversity and has been home to Indigenous peoples for thousands of years.  The move will allow oil and gas rights to be auctioned off across more than a million-and-a-half acres of the Arctic refuge coastal plains.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is a former oil lobbyist who has been accused of ethics violations and making policy decisions that directly benefited former clients.