Democrats sounding the alarm of potential harms to Alaskan communities if their efforts were reversed and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) was further opened to energy development got a very different response than they may have been expecting from a consortium of local Natives.
Using the Congressional Review Act, the Senate voted Thursday night to pass a resolution from Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, that formally reversed a Biden-era rule restricting more than 1 million acres to development in the refuge, where Native communities like Kaktovik reside.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., notably spoke out on the Senate flooragainst the effort, saying that Congress rightly established the refuge in 1980 but neglected to properly protect the “very fragile ecosystem” there from development, calling it “America’s Serengeti.”
Despite such claims that development would damage the land and adversely affect those living there, Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat (VOICE) — a group representing the communities in and around the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, were ecstatic at the Senate’s reversal of the restrictive rule.
“These joint congressional resolutions are a positive sign that congressional decisionmakers support our Iñupiaq self-determination,” VOICE President Nagruk Harcharek said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.
Harcharek said that the vote is turning the tide on years of “lopsided relations” with Congress and the executive branch.
Our “communities are cautiously optimistic for the people of Kaktovik following this vote — supported by our local and regional leaders — in our Indigenous homelands.”
