Biden Plans Sweeping Effort to Block Arctic Oil Drilling
- Half of National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska could be off-limits
- Companies say plan would violate leases, kill investment
Joe Biden
Photographer: Daniel Steinle/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The US set aside 23 million acres of Alaska’s North Slope to serve as an emergency oil supply a century ago. Now, President Joe Biden is moving to block oil and gas development across roughly half of it.
The initiative, set to be finalized within days, marks one of the most sweeping efforts yet by Biden to limit oil and gas exploration on federal lands. It comes as he seeks to boost land conservation and fight climate change — and is campaigning for a second term on promises to do more of it.