AG Ferguson leads lawsuit to protect America’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas drilling

Alexis Bonogofsky, Alaska Region U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Wednesday he is leading a coalition of 15 states filing a federal lawsuit against the Trump Administration to protect America’s pristine and undeveloped Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas development.

The Coastal Plain is a 1.6 million-acre national treasure, unparalleled in its biological significance for hundreds of species, including caribou, threatened polar bears and millions of birds that migrate to and from six continents and through the lower 48 states.

The area is sacred to the indigenous Gwich’in people and is particularly vulnerable to environmental stressors, including climate change, which has caused thinning sea ice and thawing of permafrost in the region.

Despite that, the Trump Administration’s Department of the Interior has authorized an oil and gas drilling program that will cause irreparable damage to one of the few remaining wild places in the nation.

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