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The Biden administration on Wednesday revealed plans to hold an auction of oil and gas drilling rights for up to 1 million acres in the Cook Inlet off the coast of Alaska in December.The sale is among the concessions to the oil and gas sector included in U.S. President Joe Biden's new climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).Biden paused drilling auctions on federal lands and waters shortly after taking office as part of an agenda to fight climate change. But Senator Joe Manchin…

A US interagency working group calls for an integrated management strategy for the rapidly changing Arctic. The recently issued report of the inter-agency working group, chaired by Interior Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes, highlights the need for a coordinated approach that uses the best available science to integrate cultural, environmental and economic factors in decision-making about development and conservation. This report chronicles how Arctic residents are dealing with rapid, climate change-induced impacts on their resources and traditional ways of life at the same time that new economic activity and opportunities are emerging — notably oil and gas, marine transportation, tourism and mining,” said Hayes, chair of the Alaska Interagency Working Group that commissioned the report.