Rep. Huffman Introduces Bill to Restore Protections to the Arctic Refuge

WASHINGTON – Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA) is introducing a bill today that would restore protections to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

The bill reverses a provision jammed into the 2017 tax bill that mandates opening the Refuge’s coastal plain to oil and gas exploration and drilling.

The following is a statement from John Bowman, Senior Director for Federal Affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council:

“This bill calls a halt to the Administration’s headlong rush to sell off this special wilderness to corporate polluters.  And it preserves the fundamental human rights of the Gwich’in people whom these lands have sustained for thousands of years, and who—among two-thirds of all Americans—oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge.”

“There’s no such thing as a refuge where destruction is permitted. You can’t call these fragile wildlands a refuge if you cast them open to 90,000 pound trucks and allow destructive activities that will further threaten imperiled polar bears, foxes, musk oxen and migratory birds.”

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The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.​