ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Environmental groups wasted no time challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to allow oil and gas drilling in an Alaska refuge where polar bears and caribou roam.
Two lawsuits filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage sought to block the Interior Department’s plan to allow oil and gas lease sales on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — a 1.56 million-acre strip of land along Alaska’s northern Beaufort Sea coast, or about 8 percent of the 19.3 million-acre refuge.
In one lawsuit, the National Audubon Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth sued David Bernhardt, the Interior Department secretary who approved the oil and gas lease sales last week.
“Birds can’t vote, and they can’t file a lawsuit — but we can. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to defend the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and protect America’s bird nursery from drilling,” David Yarnold, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society, said in a statement.