55 Democratic lawmakers ask Biden administration to expand Arctic protections

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) led a letter from more than 50 congressional Democrats calling on the Interior Department to expand federal protections in the Arctic.

The Interior Department in July solicited comments on whether further protections should be imposed within a 23-million acre swath of the western Arctic. The Interior Department first began designating so-called Special Areas within the region in the 1970s, most recently in April, when the Biden administration expanded protections for 13 million acres across five such areas.

In addition to Markey and Huffman, the letter was signed by Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and 45 other House Democrats.

“This opportunity to take a renewed look at needed protections is especially timely, as the effects of climate change in the Arctic — from declining sea ice, permafrost thaw, and record temperatures — are felt more acutely than ever before and new extractive development encroaches more and more into important habitat and subsistence areas,” they wrote.

The Interior Department issued the request for comment in July. “With the rapidly changing climate, the Special Areas are increasingly critical to caribou movement and herd health, as well as other wildlife, migratory birds, and native plants,” Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement at the time.

Environmentalists have been broadly supportive of the administration’s recent moves on the Arctic, which also include an announcement in June that it would block the proposed Ambler Road leading to the site of copper and cobalt deposits and blocking mining in 28 million acres of protected lands.

However, they were broadly critical of the Interior Department’s announcement last year that it would approve the proposed Willow drilling project in Alaska.