The Government Shutdown Has Stalled Trump’s Plan to Drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

In a rare bit of good news about the partial government shutdown, President Trump’s dream of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border seems to be putting a damper on his administration’s plans to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska to oil and gas drilling. The government shutdown is causing this effort to hit delays as the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are unable to move forward with issuing permits for seismic testing, reports the Anchorage Daily News. Seismic testing, which involves using heavy machinery to blast sound waves underground, allows companies to determine how much oil and gas could be hiding beneath ANWR’s 1.6 million acres coastal plain, where Congress voted to allow drilling in 2017. SAExploration was the first to apply to conduct seismic tests back in May. The company had originally planned to begin testing—which it can only conduct from December to May because that’s when there’s enough ice on the ground for the equipment and crews to reach the coastal plain—this month, with tests stretching into the following winter. But without a permit, those tests haven’t started yet...MORE