During Shutdown, Trump Administration continued effort to expand Alaska Oil Drilling

The Trump administration is continuing work on one of Interior's biggest, most controversial priorities: opening up more Arctic lands in Alaska to oil drilling.

The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is a vast 22.1-million-acre area on Alaska's North Slope. The Bureau of Land Management, an agency under the Interior, has gone ahead with a series of public meetings in its effort to expand oil development in the 22-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska during Trump's shutdown.

Two weeks into the shutdown, a BLM employee was contacting Alaska community leaders to schedule meetings related to oil lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Congress legalized drilling in the refuge just over one year ago, after decades of opposition from conservation groups.

According to Alaska Public Media, the BLM employee's email account sent an automatic reply: "Due to the lapse in funding of the federal government budget, I am out of the office. I am not authorized to work during this time, but will respond to your email when I return to the office."

Even so, permits were issued and meetings were held during the shutdown. Following public outcry and a letter from a Democratic congressman after Alaska Public Media's report, the Bureau of Land Management announced it had postponed the Arctic Refuge-related meetings during the shutdown.

The letter came from the new chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, a Democrat who strongly opposes to oil development in the Refuge.

"One of the most striking features of the current government shutdown, brought about entirely by the President's insistence on building an entirely unnecessary border wall, is the way the administration has bent over backwards to ensure that the pain of the shutdown falls only on ordinary Americans and the environment, and not on the oil and gas industry," wrote Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona.

On the other side of Alaska, the U.S. Government took steps to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas development. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a vast natural area occupying the northeastern corner of Alaska. It was established in 1960 as Arctic National Wildlife Range and renamed Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1980, the refuge at its present size is about 30,500 square miles (79,000 square km). It is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and is one of the great pristine and largely undisturbed wilderness areas of North America. The refuge has been the subject of much controversy because of the potential hydrocarbon reserves within it.

The Vuntut Gwitchin feel it's bringing them a step closer to the end of their way of life.

"I catch myself wondering at times if it is responsible to even have children with the future that they're facing," said Dana Tizya-Tramm, chief elect for the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation.

ANWR is an integral breeding ground for the Porcupine caribou herd, which is crucial animal for the Gwitchin and Inuvialuit ways of life.

"We are quite literally intrinsically tied to these animals and what happens to them will directly happen to us," said Tizya-Tramm.

A draft environmental impact statement outlines options by which the government can lease the oil-rich land while protecting wildlife.

One way would be to stop heavy equipment operations during calving season, which lasts from May 20 to June 20. However, there could be an exception if a lease holder gets approval.

Other options include leasing out calving areas but zoning them for "no surface occupancy," meaning development such as roads and pipelines would not be allowed.

The more than 700-page draft environmental impact statement report also considers an option to not allow land leases on primary calving habitat. This provision would allow 244,600 acres of land lease potential with no surface occupancy.

However, First Nations and environmental groups on the Canadian side of the border believe any kind of development on these lands would have catastrophic consequences for the area.

The document says Northwest Territories Gwich'in, Vuntut Gwitchin and Inuvialuit are the primary harvesters of the Porcupine caribou, taking 85 per cent of the harvest.

Tizya-Tramm went to three public input sessions this year to advocate against the development. Although the report refers to consultations with Gwitchin people, Tizya-Tramm does not feel their views have been properly acknowledged by the U.S. Government.

"It has to be known that this is not meaningful consultation," said Tizya-Tramm. "This is a checkbox that is being ticked."

Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Yukon agrees the process is being fast tracked.

"Normally an environmental review of an issue as devastating as oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would take years and years to complete," said Malkolm Boothroyd, campaign coordinator for CPAWS Yukon.

"We saw in the spring they ignored requests to lengthen public comment periods, they ignored requests to hold meetings in Canada," said Boothroyd. "[It's] all the more signs of how the U.S. government is racing to complete this process."

The legislation requires at least two lease sales to be held by December 2024 and for each lease to offer a minimum 400,000 acres of land.

A 45-day comment period opened up on December 28, 2018 for public input on the report ended on February 11, 2019.

The Canadian government, two territories and several First Nations are expressing concerns to the United States over plans to open the calving grounds of a large cross-border caribou herd to energy drilling, despite international agreements to protect it.

"Canada is concerned about the potential transboundary impacts of oil and gas exploration and development planned for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain," says a letter from Environment Canada to the Alaska office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Yukon and the Northwest Territories have submitted similar concerns as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump drafts plans to study the environmental impact of selling exploration leases on the 'ecologically rich plain.'

"Much of the wildlife that inhabits the ... refuge is shared with Canada," says the N.W.T.'s letter to the U.S..