Barack Obama aide defends Alaska conservation plan

A senior White House official has criticised a Republican senator from Alaska and the state's congressional representatives for their strong disapproval of President Barack Obama's plans to protect 12 million acres of Arctic wildlife refuge from oil and gas drilling.

The Obama administration announced on Sunday the president's intention to ask the US Congress to designate more land in Alaska's wildlife refuge as a protected wilderness area.

About seven million acres of Alaska’s 19 million-acre national wildlife refuge, home to polar bears, grey wolves and 200 species of birds, are designated as wilderness, putting it off limits to exploration.

Protect

Mr Obama wants to protect the remainder of the refuge, including about 1.5 million acres of oil-rich coastal plains near Alaska’s northeastern corner that have for years been at the centre of disputes between conservationists and supporters of greater exploration.

In a video posted by the White House on Sunday, the president said that he would ask Congress to protect the wildlife refuge to “make sure that this amazing wonder is preserved for future generations”.

US interior secretary Sally Jewell said that just like Yosemite National Park or the Grand Canyon, the Arctic refuge was one of the country's "crown jewels".

The proposal, which would be the largest designation of wilderness since the Wilderness Act in the 1960, requires legislation to pass Congress but the odds of this happening are long given the likely strong resistance from Republicans who control Congress. Alaska’s representatives have condemned the administration in angry terms over the move, saying that it threatens the local economy.

The state’s congressional representatives, along with governor Bill Walker, a Republican who ran as an independent in the last election, have said the action was “an unprecedented assault on Alaska”.

"They've decided that today was the day that they were going to declare war on Alaska. Well, we are ready to engage," said senator Lisa Murkowski, the new chairwoman of the influential Senate energy and natural resources committee.

She said that she couldn't understand why the administration is willing to negotiate with Iran but not with Alaska on this issue. Dan Sullivan, the state's newly elected senator, described the president's plan a "lawless attempt" ultimately to make Alaska "one big national park".

Climate change

Speaking in

India

where he is accompanying Mr Obama on a visit,

John Podesta

, the president’s counsellor overseeing climate change and energy policy, said that he had hoped for “a more balanced reaction”.

“So we hope that we can find co-operation so that wilderness designation ultimately can go through in the Congress,” he said.

The announcement comes ahead of Mr Podesta stepping down next month to help Hillary Clinton’s anticipated presidential campaign.

Urging Congress to approve the plan, the White House has pointed to America’s standing as the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, a result of the US boom in oil and gas extraction from shale rock.