[HN Gopher] US to auction off parts of Arctic wildlife refuge to...
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       US to auction off parts of Arctic wildlife refuge to oil drillers
        
       Author : samizdis
       Score  : 29 points
       Date   : 2021-01-05 19:09 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | soupson wrote:
       | This will still get caught up in litigation, won't be backed by
       | the Biden administration, and won't be funded by any of the big
       | banks, which have refused to participate [0]
       | 
       | [0]https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-joins-
       | big-...
        
       | gotem wrote:
       | Interesting how it's good for energy production but not for the
       | environment despite the environment producing energy.
        
         | dgllghr wrote:
         | Interesting how lobotomies are good for treating mania but not
         | brains despite the brain producing mania
        
       | notional wrote:
       | > They said development would generate $900m, although an
       | analysis by the non-partisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common
       | Sense, based on historical bid data, found that it would bring in
       | just a fraction of that amount - no more than $27.6m. That would
       | be split between the federal government and the state of Alaska.
       | 
       | $900 million is a big number but when I opened this article I was
       | wondering why any of the big name billionaires who are making
       | climate change 'pledges', or basically thinking about Bezos here,
       | wouldn't just buy it up instead.
       | 
       | Then I got to this part in the next paragraph
       | 
       | > The former governors Frank Murkowski and Bill Walker have
       | encouraged the state to bid on any unwanted tracts itself, and
       | last week a state-owned economic development corporation voted to
       | authorize bidding up to $20m.
       | 
       | It looks like there is at least in Alaska some efforts to keep
       | the lands away from oil companies.
       | 
       | Given that billionaires love to collect land even more than they
       | like starting space companies, it'd be a huge philanthropic
       | initiative to purchase it and have it turned into protected
       | wildlife refuge.
        
         | ENOTTY wrote:
         | The economic development fund for the state of Alaska would not
         | be purchasing tracts of lands for the purposes of preservation.
         | They would be purchasing the tracts of land in order to
         | preserve the ability to lease them to oil companies in the
         | future, after the Trump administration leaves office.
        
       | njarboe wrote:
       | These lands are not being sold to anyone as implied in the
       | standard click-bait style headline.
       | 
       | It is probably best if this oil is left in the ground for future
       | generations until we get our CO2 levels under control, but these
       | are leases of the land for oil exploration and extraction. They
       | expire and in many cases no wells will be drilled, especially if
       | the price of oil keeps dropping.
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-05 23:03 UTC)