Voters Oppose Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
By Marcela Mulholland and Danielle Deiseroth
In 2017, Congress opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas drilling as part of President Trump’s massive tax cut for billionaires and corporations. Last month, the Trump Administration announced it will rush approval of oil and gas drilling leases in the Refuge before President-Elect Biden takes office. The inclusion of oil and gas drilling in the Trump Trump tax bill was part of a broader accounting trick that Congressional Republicans used to claim they had revenue to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Republicans claim that opening the ANWR drilling could raise $1 billion to $1.8 billion in revenue, but the Center for American Progress estimates the federal government would only receive around $37.5 million from drilling leases over the next decade. Despite Republican claims, drilling in the Arctic likely will not yield the payoff they had projected.
Opponents of drilling in the ANWR range from big banks to Indigenous communities to climate activists. More than two dozen major global banks — including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Bank of America — have all said that they will not finance drilling in the Refuge. And, the Indigenous Gwich’in, who have relied on the caribou herds in the Refuge for millennia, are staunchly opposed to drilling on their sacred land.
The Gwich’in have been fighting for decades alongside climate and environmental activists who recognize the devastating ecological and climate impacts that drilling in the ANWR would have. The ANWR is the most important land denning habitat for polars bears in the Alaskan arctic and provides a critical habitat for wolves, grizzly bears, brown bears, musk oxen foxes and millions of migratory birds. Furthermore, a new report found that the Arctic is warming more than twice as quickly as other parts of the world. In 2019, Alaska experienced its warmest month and day on record. We can only expect these trends to worsen if we open the Arctic for drilling.
Now, the Trump Administration is scrambling to sell oil and gas leases before President-Elect Biden—who opposes the proposal and has pledged to permanently protect the ANWR—takes office. Though this may set up an early showdown with the fossil fuel industry for President-Elect Biden, he should take comfort in knowing that voters agree with his opposition to drilling in the ANWR.
As part of a recent national survey, Data for Progress asked likely voters whether they support or oppose the Trump Administration’s plan to rush the sales of oil and gas drilling oil and gas drilling leases in the ANWR before President-Elect Biden takes office. A majority of voters (53 percent) oppose the Trump Administration’s actions, including an overwhelming majority of voters who self-identify as Democrats (75 percent) and independents (60 percent). Unsurprisingly, a majority of voters who self-identify as Republicans (66 percent) support the GOP plan to sell oil and gas leases in the ANWR during the final days of Trump’s presidency.
When voters are shown the Trump Administration’s arguments in support of the plan and President-Elect Biden’s arguments against it, opposition among all voters actually increases four percentage points to 57 percent. Opposition among Democrats increases seven points to 82 percent, while opposition among independents holds steady at 60 percent. Meanwhile, Republican support for the Trump Administration’s plan grows six points to 72 percent when they are shown the Administration’s economic argument in support of the plan.
Despite the Trump Administration's last ditch effort to put the interests of fossil fuel billionaires over the interests of the public, voters side with protecting the Arctic. Voters reject Republican messaging that opening the Arctic is good for business and side more with concerns about climate change, wildlife protection and land rights of Indigenous peoples. It’s clear that the public is far more aligned with President-Elect Biden’s stance that the Refuge should be permanently protected than with the Trump Administration’s reckless actions, and the incoming Biden Administration should feel comfortable acting decisively to protect this American treasure.
Marcela Mulholland (@x3Marcela_) is Deputy Director for Climate for Data for Progress
Danielle Deiseroth (@danielledeis) is the Climate Data Analyst for Data for Progress
Survey Methodology
From December 6 to December 7, 2020, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,230 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±2.8 percentage points.