Protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

NRDC and allies are suing over the Trump administration’s decision to open the heart of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing.

One of the world’s last pristine wild places is on the front lines of climate change—and threatened by the Trump administration’s determination to open the Arctic to drilling. These photos speak to why we must fight both.

The Interior Department is opening up the entire Coastal Plain of the refuge to polluters—at the expense of Indigenous peoples' traditional ways of life, numerous wildlife species, and the climate.

Any day now, the Trump administration will officially open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. But Congress will not allow the destruction of America’s Serengeti to go down without a fight.

You don’t pay for a $1.5 trillion handout with $100 million a year.

The Trump administration's Final Environmental Impact Statement for oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge unlawfully opens the entire coastal plain to leasing, ignoring the administration’s legal duty. We will hold the administration to account at every step.

In its haste to hand over our most sacred public lands to polluters, the Trump administration is expected to finalize plans to allow oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as soon as this week. Meanwhile, Senate champions determined to save these treasured lands from destruction are introducing a bill to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

In its first days back from a six-week August recess, Congress is prioritizing a vote on critical legislation (H.R. 1146) to prevent destructive oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The floor vote comes at a pivotal point in the fight to save the Refuge: The Trump administration is expected to finalize its plans for oil and gas leasing in the Refuge as soon as this week.

Oil and gas exploration would harm the region’s iconic species as well as the native Gwich’in people’s way of life.

Secretary Zinke this week—with great fanfare—approved a drilling operation in Arctic waters just off the coast of Alaska in the Beaufort sea. The Arctic is no place for oil and gas drilling, and this site is not far from one of America’s last wild places—the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

If passed, a new bill could reverse Trump’s efforts to open the Alaskan wilderness to Big Oil.

The tax scheme protects the oil and gas industry while cutting clean energy initiatives and destroying millions of acres of nature.

Can President Obama finally end the debate over drilling in northeastern Alaska?

Trump is going after America’s most pristine wildland. Nineteen million acres of spectacular, unspoiled nature, the Arctic Refuge is the largest and wildest of our publicly owned reserves.

NRDC played a key role in banning offshore drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic. Once again, it’s fighting to protect those oceans—and the rest of America’s waters.

From the Arctic Ocean, to the Arctic Refuge, to the Western Arctic, NRDC and our partners have led the charge in 2019 to save the American Arctic from senseless, destructive, climate-wrecking fossil fuel development.