"President Trump on Wednesday was poised to sign the new tax bill, passed by Congress, which lifts a decades-old ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska. ... Will exploration begin immediately? No. Both supporters and opponents say it could be years before the first lease sale, a precursor to any drilling."
"These satellite images of a small part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge show the site of what, so far, is the only oil well ever drilled in the refuge, an exploratory well known as KIC-1 that was completed in the mid-1980s. The well was plugged and abandoned, and the drilling equipment and a special timber pad it sat on have long since been removed."
"Melting permafrost and major storms are eating away at the coastal Alaskan village of Newtok. Residents are desperate to move, but the U.S. has no climate change relocation plan that could help them."
"A tax cut compromise reached Wednesday by GOP negotiators contains a plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said."
Almost a dozen investigations are underway at the U.S. EPA and the Interior Department, including of unusual travel, private sector connections and staff/advisory panel moves. This week's TipSheet runs down the probes in detail, and offers resources for coverage of developments in 2018.
"President Donald Trump’s efforts to make the United States 'energy dominant' with help from Alaska got off to modest results Wednesday."
"It's going to be a tough year for many Alaska fishermen. After announcements of a massive drop in cod stocks, the industry learned last week that Pacific halibut catches are likely to drop by 20 percent next year, and the declines could continue for several years."
"Three years after the Army Corps declared it sufficiently cleaned up, a former Air Force station continues to contaminate wildlife on remote St. Lawrence Island".
"A subsidiary of an Italian energy company has received a federal permit to drill the first oil exploration wells in U.S. Arctic waters in two years."
"Bernadette Demientieff says it is a 'very scary time' for the Gwich'in indigenous nation as proposed US budget legislation would open a key section of a nearly 20-million acre wildlife refuge in the Arctic up to oil-and-gas development."
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