On a potentially positive note, they’ve done this before, to little success.
First term Trump attempted to sell off Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and they essentially had no serious takers. While the MAGAs give zero damns about the environment, anyone looking at these leases know how controversial they are. Groups like the National Audubon Society will sue to delay/deter resource extraction, and there will be public protests and other bad reactions.
Also, as pointed out in this article, financiers also know that despite having a permission slip signed, getting those resources out of the ground is not going to be popular, and they will not put up the money to do anything with those leases.
In the first lease auction on December 26, the Trump administration did sell some leases, but many environmentalists see this auction as insignificant since there was inadequate interest from oil companies.
Only three bids were placed in the first auction, paying around $14.4 million, or about $27 per acre, compared to the total $1 billion in lease sales projected by the BLM.
Most oil companies were not interested because they knew that they would be developing a lease in a wildlife refuge, and so many banks have refused to offer financial and public assistance for the project.
In Canada, more than 30 groups have joined the Arctic Refuge Defence Campaign, a coalition dedicated to protecting the refuge that provides breeding habitat to polar bears, migratory birds, and the 100,000 animals of the Porcupine Caribou Herd that Canada shares with the United States.
The State of Alaska purchased most of the leases sold on December 26 through the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, with only two private companies securing tracts of land.
The reason they will continue to offer these leases, despite them not likely to be taken seriously, is the goverment still makes money off the leases even if no resources are extracted. It’s free money for them.
“Today’s sale reflects the brutal economic realities the oil and gas industry continues to face after the unprecedented events of 2020, coupled with ongoing regulatory uncertainty,” she said in a statement.
The lease sale raised a total of $14.4 million in bids, according to the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that held the sale. Nearly all of that came from Alaska’s state-owned economic development corporation, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.
Half of the cash will go to the federal government, and half will go back to the state of Alaska.
The amount raised is nowhere near what was projected when a Republican-led Congress officially opened the coastal plain to drilling in 2017 as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The bill ordered two lease sales, the first by the end of this year, with the revenue aimed at offsetting massive tax cuts.
Despite the lack of industry interest, Alaska’s Congressional delegation applauded the sale on Wednesday, and so did officials with the Bureau of Land Management, describing it as historic and a success.
Gov lines some pockets, they get to tell the Drill, Baby, Drill chuds “mission accomplished”, and the only companies that bought the leases where fly by night nobodies that have never drilled for oil anywhere.
So it still sucks they’re trying this. We still need to fight to stop it. But it’s far from a done deal, goodbye environment, and we shouldn’t let it deter us from trying to save our environment.
