Washington Post: Biden Administration Suspends Oil and Gas Leases in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
From this:
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland orders new environmental review of the leasing program, saying the Trump administration did an ‘insufficient analysis’ of drilling’s impact.
The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, targeting one of President Donald Trump’s most significant environmental acts during his last days in office.
The move by the Interior Department, which could spark a major legal battle, dims the prospect of oil drilling in a pristine and politically charged expanse of Alaskan wilderness that Republicans and Democrats have fought over for four decades. The Trump administration auctioned off the right to drill in the refuge’s coastal plain — home to hundreds of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl as well as the southern Beaufort Sea’s remaining polar bears — just two weeks before President Biden was inaugurated.
Here’s another good example of the Biden administration in action, quickly and quietly but effectively reversing as much of the environmental damage inflicted by Team Trump as possible. We are all fortunate, for hundreds of different reasons, that Trump was not re-elected; most of the harm he set in motion was either held up in the courts, and has already been reversed.
Of course, Trump hasn’t given up on his continuing political future, but it’s impeded both by his own lies and wanton insanity, and the fact that Biden isn’t making horrible mistakes. Job numbers are good, the country is re-opening post-pandemic, the infrastructure bill is making progress, and the United States has rejoined the world in terms of environmental responsibility.
At this point it seems like the Republicans, if they are to be taken seriously, are going to have to drop Trump and figure out a way to offer voters something they value.
