Congress is Selling Out America's Public Lands and Waters

By Hal Shepherd

Congressional Republicans are moving to sell out public lands and waters to Big Oil campaign donors and other Wall Street insiders to fund President Donald Trump's tax breaks for billionaires.

According to a May 6 Center for American Progress (CAP) article entitled Congress' Tax Bill Is Selling Out America's Public Lands and Waters:

If passed, this bill would be the most significant successful attack by Congress on U.S. lands and waters in modern American history. It would give the oil industry free rein over more than 293 million acres of public lands and waters—an area larger than Texas and California combined—for drilling through its first rounds of mandated lease sales alone.* Factoring in expected tax cuts and other legal changes that would benefit fossil fuel CEOs, the tax bill would be a massive win for Big Oil and a massive loss for the American public.

Additionally, the tax bill would prohibit the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which manages these lands, from rejecting such leases or taking any action to protect water, wildlife, or other resources.

In Alaska, the bill would require increased oil and gas leasing in Cook Inlet and an alarming four million acres every other year in the 19.3-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the 23.4-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The region is dominated by low-lying land, lakes, rivers, and wetlands on the North Slope of Alaska and is home to endangered beluga whales and polar bears to migratory birds, bears, and caribou.

USFWS Image of Canning River Caribou

Because such species support the livelihoods of the Athabascan Gwich'in and Iñupiaq peoples throughout the region since time immemorial, the Indigenous community has been the protector of its traditional territory. For several decades, this tiny, remote Arctic community has been up against relentless pressure from the oil and gas industry, backed by politicians in Washington, DC.

A huge lease sale in the Arctic is just another of Trump's environmental destruction for destruction's sake policies, as illustrated by the fact that it doesn't even make good economic sense. In 2017, for example, "Congress authorized drilling in the Arctic Refuge with the promise of offsetting $2 billion in tax cuts. Instead, the program generated less than 1 percent of what was promised, and the most recent congressionally mandated Arctic lease sale, in January, received no bids."

According to CAP,

Mandating reckless lease sales on public lands and waters will not lower gasoline or energy prices or increase American energy security. But it will ensure that U.S. public lands and waters are prioritized for oil and gas while sacrificing public health and displacing recreation, wildlife habitat, renewable energy, and other uses.

The bill additionally calls for developing the 211-mile Ambler Road that would run through the Brooks Range and the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve to the Ambler Mining District —a project vehemently opposed by Alaskan Native Communities. According to Doug Katchatag, the President of the Norton Bay Watershed Council, who lives in the Native Village of Unalakleet, if the road goes through, "[w]e stand to lose our fish and wildlife resources from a land that was once bountiful and beautiful. If the road goes, the region between Ambler and Fairbanks will largely be a dead zone." Once again, such destruction doesn't even make economic sense because the minerals believed to be available in the mining district "are speculative in nature and would not make Alaska or America richer."

Please call the Alaska Delegation:

Lisa Murkowski - Anchorage (907) 271-3735/ Washington D.C (202)-224-6665;

Dan Sullivan: Washington Office: (202) 224-3004/Anchorage Office:

Phone: (907) 271-5915;

Nick Begich: Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 225-5765//Anchorage Office: (907) 921-6575

Tell them it is not acceptable to sell out our public lands in Alaska and nationwide just for the sake of destruction. This is especially true since the tax bill doesn't make good economic sense especially for Alaskans and will not achieve it’s intended tax breaks for the wealthy.