The last oil: America’s destructive path to energy dominance

It has been just over a year, and this administration has made its priorities clear, and “energy dominance” is at the top of the list. Unfortunately, a priority it does not have is protecting habitats and the people and wildlife that depend on them for their livelihoods.

Because of this renewed support by Republicans for unfettered oil and gas drilling, the GOP tax bill, which was signed into law in December, included a provision opening the door for drilling in the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is sacred to the indigenous Gwich’in people who have lived virtually undisturbed for thousands of years, living along the migration path of the porcupine caribou herd that depends on this area as birthing grounds for its young.

Once the coastal plain is sold off to oil companies to be drilled and fracked, the effects will be lasting and irreversible. This land is some of the last untouched habitat in the United States, and putting in oil rigs, pipelines and other infrastructure would threaten iconic wildlife and imperil sensitive species that call the refuge home, as well as the people who have long relied on them. The refuge would be forever destroyed by spills and pollution, and an entire culture could be wiped out just to benefit the fossil fuel industry.

As if this plan wasn’t bad enough, the administration announced its five-year offshore drilling plan that would open up coastal waters all along the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific coasts to potential oil spill disasters. Millions of acres of coastal communities and wildlife habitats from Alaska to Maine to California are now at risk. The plan includes 19 lease sales in Alaska, including six in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in the Arctic, which are among the most biologically diverse waters on Earth.

This, accompanied by the fact that Congress also repealed offshore drilling safety regulations put in place after the deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster, is truly a reckless combination. It will have lasting consequences for generations to come, including exacerbating the negative effects of climate change.

Alaska, especially the Arctic Refuge, is too special to be sold off to greedy oil and gas developers. Do we want to be remembered as the generation that allowed the destruction of one of the last great wilderness areas left untouched?

A number of dedicated individuals and organizations across the United States and Canada are determined to make sure that doesn’t happen. Last month, The University of New Mexico hosted a symposium called “The Last Oil: A multispecies justice symposium on Arctic Alaska and beyond,” bringing together dozens of concerned Native leaders from Alaska and New Mexico, Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., scientists, attorneys, nonprofit leaders, activists and professors. They worked on strategies and campaigns to fight these harmful proposals — both to protect the Arctic from destructive drilling and to protect greater Chaco Canyon in New Mexico from dirty fracking.

For the first time ever, the GOP tax bill opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, but the fight is far from over. In fact, the fight is just beginning. Now more than ever, we need to stand up to the twisted forces that would gaze upon such an ecologically rich and culturally significant landscape and imagine wildlife and wetlands being replaced by oil derricks, roads and pipelines. Our country is at a crossroads, and we need your voice if we are going to choose a path that strengthens the rights of indigenous peoples, seeks to mitigate climate change, protects Native cultures, promotes sustainable energy policies and defends vulnerable wildlife. Join us.

Michael Dax is a National Outreach Representative for Defenders of Wildlife. He is based in Santa Fe.