In an ag­gres­sive move that an­gered Re­pub­li­cans, the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion can­celed the sev­en re­main­ing oil and gas leas­es in Alas­ka’s Arc­tic Na­tion­al Wildlife Refuge on Wednes­day, over­turn­ing sales held in the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s wan­ing days, and pro­posed stronger pro­tec­tions against de­vel­op­ment on vast swaths of the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Re­serve-Alas­ka.

The De­part­ment of In­te­ri­or’s scrap­ping of the leas­es comes af­ter the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion dis­ap­point­ed en­vi­ron­men­tal groups ear­li­er this year by ap­prov­ing the Wil­low oil project in the pe­tro­le­um re­serve, a mas­sive project by Cono­coPhillips Alas­ka that could pro­duce up to 180,000 bar­rels of oil a day on Alas­ka’s pe­tro­le­um-rich North Slope. Pro­tec­tions are pro­posed for more than 20,000 square miles (51,800 square kilo­me­ters) of land in the re­serve in the west­ern Arc­tic.

Some crit­ics who said the ap­proval of Wil­low flew in the face of Biden’s pledges to ad­dress cli­mate change laud­ed Wednes­day’s an­nounce­ment. But they said more could be done. Lit­i­ga­tion over the ap­proval of the Wil­low project is pend­ing.

“Alas­ka is home to many of Amer­i­ca’s most breath­tak­ing nat­ur­al won­ders and cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant ar­eas. As the cli­mate cri­sis warms the Arc­tic more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect this trea­sured re­gion for all ages,” Biden said in a state­ment.

His ac­tions “meet the ur­gency of the cli­mate cri­sis” and will “pro­tect our lands and wa­ters for gen­er­a­tions to come,” Biden said.

Alas­ka’s Re­pub­li­can gov­er­nor con­demned Biden’s moves and threat­ened to sue. And at least one De­mo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­er said the de­ci­sion could hurt In­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in an iso­lat­ed re­gion where oil de­vel­op­ment is an im­por­tant eco­nom­ic dri­ver.

In­te­ri­or Sec­re­tary Deb Haa­land, who drew crit­i­cism for her role in the ap­proval of the Wil­low project, said Wednes­day that “no one will have rights to drill for oil in one of the most sen­si­tive land­scapes on earth.” How­ev­er, a 2017 law man­dates an­oth­er lease sale by late 2024.

Ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials said they in­tend to com­ply with the law.

The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so an­nounced pro­posed rules aimed at pro­vid­ing stronger pro­tec­tions against new leas­ing and de­vel­op­ment in por­tions of the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Re­serve-Alas­ka that are des­ig­nat­ed as spe­cial ar­eas for their wildlife, sub­sis­tence, scenic or oth­er val­ues. The pro­pos­al still must go through pub­lic com­ment. Wil­low lies with­in the re­serve but was not ex­pect­ed to be af­fect­ed by the pro­posed rules.

The Arc­tic Na­tion­al Wildlife Refuge’s 1.5-mil­lion-acre (600,000-hectare) coastal plain, which lies along the Beau­fort Sea on Alas­ka’s north­east­ern edge, is seen as sa­cred by the In­dige­nous Gwich’in be­cause it is where cari­bou they re­ly on mi­grate and come to give birth. The plain is marked by hills, rivers and small lakes and tun­dra. Mi­gra­to­ry birds and cari­bou pass through the plain, which pro­vides habi­tat for wildlife in­clud­ing po­lar bears and wolves.

Alas­ka po­lit­i­cal lead­ers — in­clud­ing some De­moc­rats — have long pushed to al­low oil and gas drilling in the refuge in part be­cause of its eco­nom­ic im­pact on In­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in an area with few oth­er jobs. Many of those same voic­es pressed Biden to ap­prove the Wil­low project for the same rea­son.

“I am deeply frus­trat­ed by the re­ver­sal of these leas­es in AN­WR,” said U.S. Rep. Mary Pel­to­la, a De­mo­c­rat, us­ing a com­mon short­hand for the refuge. “This ad­min­is­tra­tion showed that it is ca­pa­ble of lis­ten­ing to Alaskans with the ap­proval of the Wil­low Project, and it is some of those same In­u­pi­at North Slope com­mu­ni­ties who are most im­pact­ed by this de­ci­sion. I will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for them and for Alas­ka’s abil­i­ty to ex­plore and de­vel­op our nat­ur­al re­sources.”

Alas­ka’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion in 2017 suc­ceed­ed in get­ting lan­guage added to a fed­er­al tax law that called for the U.S. gov­ern­ment to hold two lease sales in the re­gion by late 2024.

Drilling op­po­nents on Wednes­day urged Con­gress to re­peal the leas­ing pro­vi­sion from the 2017 law and per­ma­nent­ly make the coastal plain off lim­its to drilling.

“It is near­ly im­pos­si­ble to over­state the im­por­tance of to­day’s an­nounce­ments for Arc­tic con­ser­va­tion,” said Jamie Williams, pres­i­dent of the Wilder­ness So­ci­ety. “Once again, the Arc­tic Refuge is free of oil leas­es. Our cli­mate is a bit safer and there is re­newed hope for per­ma­nent­ly pro­tect­ing one of the last great wild land­scapes in Amer­i­ca.”

Alas­ka Re­pub­li­can U.S. Sen. Dan Sul­li­van de­nounced Biden’s ac­tions as the lat­est vol­ley in what he called a “war on Alas­ka.”

Two oth­er leas­es that were is­sued as part of the first-of-its-kind sale for the refuge in Jan­u­ary 2021 were pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en up by the small com­pa­nies that held them amid le­gal wran­gling and un­cer­tain­ty over the drilling pro­gram.

Af­ter tak­ing of­fice, Biden is­sued an ex­ec­u­tive or­der call­ing for a tem­po­rary mora­to­ri­um on ac­tiv­i­ties re­lat­ed to the leas­ing pro­gram and for the In­te­ri­or sec­re­tary to re­view the pro­gram. Haa­land lat­er in 2021 or­dered a new en­vi­ron­men­tal re­view af­ter con­clud­ing there were “mul­ti­ple le­gal de­fi­cien­cies” un­der­ly­ing the Trump-era leas­ing pro­gram. Haa­land halt­ed ac­tiv­i­ties re­lat­ed to the leas­ing pro­gram pend­ing the new analy­sis.

A draft en­vi­ron­men­tal re­view was re­leased Wednes­day.

The Alas­ka In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment and Ex­port Au­thor­i­ty, a state cor­po­ra­tion that won sev­en leas­es in the 2021 sale, sued over the mora­to­ri­um. But a fed­er­al judge re­cent­ly found the de­lay by In­te­ri­or to con­duct a new re­view was not un­rea­son­able.

The cor­po­ra­tion ob­tained the leas­es to pre­serve drilling rights in case oil com­pa­nies did not come for­ward. Ma­jor oil com­pa­nies sat out the sale, held af­ter promi­nent banks had an­nounced they would not fi­nance Arc­tic oil and gas projects.

Bernadette Demien­ti­eff, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Gwich’in Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, thanked the ad­min­is­tra­tion for the lease can­cel­la­tion — but is­sued a warn­ing.

“We know that our sa­cred land is on­ly tem­porar­i­ly safe from oil and gas de­vel­op­ment,” she said. “We urge the ad­min­is­tra­tion and our lead­ers in Con­gress to re­peal the oil and gas pro­gram and per­ma­nent­ly pro­tect the Arc­tic Refuge.”

BY BECKY BOHRER AND MATTHEW DALY

JUNEAU, Alas­ka (AP) —