Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The U.S. Presidential administration announced on Monday (Jan.4) that it has made final its plan to open up vast areas of once-protected Arctic Alaska territory to oil development.
It comes just before a scheduled auction of drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on the eastern North Slope on Wednesday.

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This land that was coming up for auction is on a protected wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
There is a lake there as well and is the largest lake for wildlife and bird sanctuaries in the State, but it is now open for drilling rights, according to 'the plan'.

I just heard in the news that the auction proceeded as planned, but not a single Oil company bought any drilling rights.
Which goes to show how wrong it would be to exploit this land, when the Oil companies stand down from it :eek:

Some rights were sold and I thought I heard they were bought up mainly by an environmental company of some kind.