The Biden administration is taking steps to thwart oil development in remote reaches of Alaska by conserving more territory in the state’s petroleum reserve and canceling leases to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to people familiar with the matter.

The moves come in the wake of the administration’s controversial decision to approve ConocoPhillips’s 600-million-barrel Willow oil project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The conservation initiatives, set to be announced Wednesday, target territory in northern Alaska long prized for its oil and gas potential — but also for its rich habitat, home to waterfowl, caribou, polar bears and other wildlife.

The actions were described by people familiar with the plans who asked not to be named because the announcement was not yet public.

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The Interior Department is set to invalidate leases sold in a January 2021 auction of parcels in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s Coastal Plain that was mandated by Congress, the people said. Congress had ordered two sales of leases in the region by Dec. 22 of next year to pay for the 2017 tax cuts.

Spokespeople for the White House and Interior Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The Interior Department is set to justify the action on grounds the Trump administration’s environmental review of the 2021 sale of leases in ANWR’s Coastal Plain was inadequate and not legally defensible.

The agency also is moving to strengthen protections across much of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The agency aims to allow the designation of special conservation areas at least every five years, with safeguards meant to ensure the protections cannot be easily undone.

The 23-million acre NPR-A, roughly the size of Indiana, was set aside for oil supply needs roughly a century ago.

Author: Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter