A group of 15 Democrat-led states sued to block the Trump administration’s decision to sell drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, alleging the plan fails to account for the danger to wildlife and climate-change impacts.
The plan to open drilling in the 1.56 million-acre coastal plain ignores impacts on polar bears, caribou and the region’s other wildlife, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a complaint filed in Alaska federal court Wednesday.
Environmentalists and Alaska natives challenged the plan in court last month, also arguing the government gave short shrift to the threat to species that inhabit the refuge.
The US Interior Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously defended the plan.