U.S. President Donald Trump’s government approved an austerity plan on Monday, including: Allocate the scope of the National Forest Life Protection of Alaska Arctic to oil exploitation. Environmental groups have condemned this measure as "an attack on indigenous people and the region's ecosystem". Concessions to operate throughout the Refuge may be awarded before the end of the year. The shelter has an area of 631,800 hectares and is the natural habitat of polar bears or caribs, among others.

Although in 1980 Congress decided to prepare the northeast of Alaska for possible oil exploitation, the Arctic shelter has been a territory banned by Republicans for drilling, despite Republicans’ efforts to open doors to oil companies for four decades. For this reason, Secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt, considered in an interview that the implementation of the program is "a milestone". "It's not the end of the lease process, but it's a very significant milestone.

Doubtful investments

Analyst group Sierra Club said in a message that "Congressional Republicans made an amendment in 2017 to allow drilling in the Arctic as part of a tax law, and stated that the two concessions to be made by December 2024 would generate $1 billion in revenue. This figure was already questionable before this year's oil market chaos." In the past year five of the six major American banks – Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Chase, City and Morgan Stanley – recognised that Arctic farms are “bad investment” and have joined more than 20 financial institutions around the world to update their investment policies and reject the financing of the region’s drilling, including the Arctic refuge. Consequently, even from a purely economic point of view, a catastrophe can be triggered. "The Trump Administration's review process of Arctic Protected Oil Holdings has been shameful from the outset," said Sierra Club campaign director Lena Moffitt, who has announced they will oppose it.

Violating the laws of protection

At the same time, the Earthjustice group recalled that "the Gwich'in indigenous people consider the Arctic Coastal Protection Plain to be sacred because it is a birthplace for spiny tribes, for the animals that Alaska residents need for food and cultural tradition."

Alaska’s regional office attorney Erik Grafe, Alaska’s Earthjustice Group regional office, has assured that this decision “does not take into account laws designed to preserve forest life.” They have stressed that the Administration’s plan to deteriorate this place is “illegal”, with no other purpose than to obtain “private oil profits”, and they have announced lawsuits in the courts. According to the plan known this Monday, the first tender for concessions will be made on December 22, 2021, but according to Bernhardt, “it can be done before the end of the year”.

Majority against

A survey conducted in April by US universities George Mason and Yale reveals that 33% of voters in the region support oil drilling, while 67% are against it.