Drilling Our Way Out of the Problem

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The U.S. government

paved the way on Wednesday for oil drilling in an Alaskan region used by migrating caribou and birds, three weeks after Congress blocked

energy development in the nearby Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Interior Department gave final approval to develop the

Teshekpuk Lake region, setting up an oil-lease sale in September. The decision came a year after the Bureau of Land Management

recommended drilling in the region, which lies west of the wildlife refuge on Alaska’s North Slope.

Teshekpuk’s 389,000 acres

had been protected from oil exploration since the Reagan Administration. In 1998, when former President Bill Clinton opened some areas of

the North Slope to the oil industry, the Teshekpuk Lake area was kept off-limits.

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