The Obama administration has already used the century-old Antiquities Act to protect public lands more often than any president perhaps since FDR. Will the outgoing White House make additional controversial last-minute designations? Here are at least five possible locales to watch, in our newest TipSheet. Image: © Clipart.com
"The GOP electoral sweep has Alaska Republicans feeling upbeat on the prospects for a priority that has eluded them for decades — opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration and drilling."
"A remote village on Alaska's northwest coast has begun a reverse tourism campaign. Residents want visitors to stay away. Pacific walrus by the thousands in recent years have come ashore in early fall near the Inupiat village of Point Lay, including about 6,000 last week, and people have dropped in, hoping to see a marine mammal phenomenon brought on by climate change and disappearing summer sea ice in the Chukchi Sea."
"Caelus Energy said it’s made a major oil discovery on the North Slope, at Smith Bay. The company estimates the oil under its current state leases at 6 billion barrels and says as much as 10 billion may lie under the shallow bay."
"Seven types of bees once found in abundance in Hawaii have become the first bees to be added to the US federal list of endangered and threatened species."
"Science ministers from 25 nations joined Alaska Natives from the Alaska Arctic for a first-of-its-kind White House meeting Wednesday to work on international cooperation for Arctic research."
"U.S. President Barack Obama will dramatically expand the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off the coast of Hawaii on Friday, the White House said, an action that will ban commercial fishing from more than 582,500 sq miles (1.5 million sq km) of the Pacific Ocean."
"Federal regulators are proposing to ban swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, a move that could imperil one of the Aloha State's most popular tourist delights and the industry that has sprung up around it."
"Residents of the coastal Alaska village with some of the worst erosion in the state voted this week to relocate rather than stay and protect the land they already have."
"Scientists working with sophisticated DNA sequencing technology think they may have solved a 20-year-old mystery of what has caused thousands of Alaska’s wild birds to be afflicted with deformed, twisted beaks."
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