News
Biden reverses Trump move to open up more oil drilling in Arctic
The Biden administration on Monday reversed a Trump administration plan that would have allowed the government to lease more than two-thirds of the country’s largest swath of public land to oil and gas drilling.
Related Knowledge Center: Arctic energy development
State of Play
The Arctic region of the United States has been both an important source of crude oil and the subject of unending political debate because of that oil.
The Prudhoe Bay oil field, along Alaska’s northern coast, for years accounted for about 20 percent of the nation’s oil production. Because of that production, the industry and its allies long have advocated exploration in the coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, about 65 miles east of Prudhoe.