North Slope Inupiat Leader Decries Biden Administration’s Moves Against Oil, Gas in Alaska

A North Slope Inupiat representative testifies that the Biden administration’s cancellation of oil and gas leases in Alaska will hurt tribal communities.

An aerial view of an exploratory drilling camp at the proposed site of the Willow oil project on the Alaska North Slope in 2019. ConocoPhillips via AP

An Interior Department official and the leader of an Alaska Native group offered very different perspectives on the Biden administration’s recent moves against oil and gas drilling in Alaska during a pair of congressional hearings.

The Department of the Interior this month canceled seven leases for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That agency also proposed a rule that would expand limits on oil and gas development on 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA), including an outright ban on new leasing on more than 10.6 million acres.