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Don't Let Oil Companies Pollute Critical Arctic Habitats
Final signature count: 52
52 signatures toward our 30,000 goal
Sponsor: The Rainforest Site
A new federal rule just stripped environmental review from 23 million acres of Arctic Alaska — with no public comment required.
On October 9, 2026, the Department of the Interior finalized a rule that strips away project-by-project environmental review for wintertime oil and gas exploration across the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) — a 23-million-acre stretch of the Alaskan Arctic that ranks among the most ecologically sensitive landscapes on the continent.4
The rule creates a categorical exclusion (CE) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — a legal designation meant for activities so routine and low-impact that individual analysis is unnecessary. Under this new CE, exploration projects in the NPR-A can advance without environmental impact statements, environmental assessments, or formal public comment periods.4 NEPA has stood for more than five decades as the public's primary safeguard against federal decisions made without full information. That safeguard no longer applies here.
Why "Winter" Is Not a Built-In Protection
The Interior Department frames the exclusion around winter conditions — ice roads, frozen ground — as evidence of reduced environmental risk. Critics reject that logic. Wintertime exploration can disturb wildlife during critical denning and breeding seasons, and the decisions made at the exploration stage directly shape the scale of permanent development that follows.2 Analysis completed without full environmental review at the start locks in consequences that can't be undone later.7
The CE itself was finalized with minimal public engagement — compounding the problem, since the rule's central effect is to eliminate public engagement from future projects.1
Who Gets Cut Out
The NPR-A is home to caribou herds, polar bears, and millions of migratory birds. Alaska Native communities have relied on this land for subsistence across generations — and NEPA's comment process represents one of their few formal opportunities to raise concerns before projects receive federal approval.5
That process is now gone. The Bureau of Land Management can now issue exploration permits with less procedural friction than at any prior point in the reserve's history.3 The CE is part of a broader Interior Department push to accelerate permitting timelines across Alaska.5 The administration's stated priority is speed — directly at the cost of the deliberation NEPA was built to require.6,8
What We're Asking For
This petition calls on the Secretary of the Interior and the Director of the Bureau of Land Management to rescind the categorical exclusion and restore standard NEPA review — including public comment — for every exploration project proposed in the NPR-A. The communities, wildlife, and ecosystems of the Arctic deserve a voice before decisions are made, not after.
Sign the petition now to tell the Interior Department to restore environmental review and public input for oil and gas exploration in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
