CNN —
The Biden administration announced Wednesday it will cancel seven Trump-era oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and protect more than 13 million acres in the federal National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, stymieing a years-long attempt to drill in the protected region.
The cancellation will affect Alaska’s state-owned oil development agency, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which bought the leases covering about 365,000 acres on ANWR’s Coastal Plain during the Trump administration.
“With today’s action, no one will have rights to drill for oil in one of the most sensitive landscapes on Earth,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told reporters
