Trump administration opens controversial oil & gas bidding in Alaska's ANW region

The United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is all set to open bidding for drilling rights in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in line with outgoing President Donald Trump's agenda for a stronger and more energy independent nation. The Trump administration won a temporary relief on Tuesday when a US District Court allowed BLM to auction off the drilling rights as it ruled against a petition seeking to halt the bidding in the region, which conservationists consider a rich wildlife area. 

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Trump administration in its final weeks is seeking to push its agenda of producing more oil and gas across the United States, which the incoming President Joe Biden has pledged to overturn after assuming office on January 20. The mineral-rich Alaska state, which was once the second-largest crude oil producer in the United States, suffered a major blowback after oil and gas companies started to move to other southern states, where production costs were much less than the icy region.

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Oil and gas companies unenthusiastic 

Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is considered sacred by the indigenous Gwich'in people, apart from being home to some of the rarest species on planet Earth. Meanwhile, the oil and gas companies do not seem excited about the bidding because the US court, while allowing BLM to auction off the drilling rights, ruled the actual seismic exploration would not begin in two years because it could cause "irreparable damage" to the region.

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The court ruling has given the Republican lawmakers a temporary relief because they had been advocating for years to open the region to oil and gas companies in order to create the much-needed jobs in the northern-most territory of the United States, which remains shut half the year because of extreme weather conditions. It remains unclear whether Joe Biden would allow the development to continue, but the President-elect's one of the key political promises was to protect the environment. 

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