Alaska: Biden administration bans mining, oil and gas activity on 28 million acres

The Department of the Interior announced the implementation of a new policy restricting several industrial activities in Alaska. Specifically, mining, oil drilling and gas extraction will be banned in an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania. 

The new measure removes an area of up to 28 million acres for resource development, which will have a serious energy impact on the country and the state of Alaska. The lands in question are federally owned. 

The Power The Future association doesn’t agree with the measure. Rick Whitbeck, the Alaska State Director, spoke out against the decision of the Department of the Interior. According to Whitbeck, the administration's policy entails a future energy impoverishment for the state of Alaska. It would also make the country’s position in the international energy market, a strategic sector, more vulnerable to Russia or China. 

Along with the decision to ban industrial activity in Alaska, the Biden administration also blocked the construction and use of a road connecting central Alaska's mining districts to the central state highway. 

"With today's double attack on Alaska's resource development opportunities, it is now 65 times that the Biden Administration has put our state's energy and economic future in the crosshairs. This administration has completely kowtowed to radical environmentalists in an effort to curry favor at the ballot box. Putting 28 million acres off limits to responsible development is reckless, and only empowers China, Russia and other enemies of our Republic," Whitbeck said, according to media reports.