Opponents of oil and gas development in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are criticizing a US Interior Department environmental review as inadequate, previewing a potential legal battle which could thwart drilling in the Alaskan frontier area. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now The draft environmental impact statement, which Interior released in December, downplays the impact oil and gas drilling would have on Alaska’s ANWR, these opponents said. The environmental review “dramatically underestimates and discounts the permanent, irreversible damage that would result from drilling in the Arctic Refuge,” the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning public policy research and advocacy organization, wrote in a January 10 report. Interior’s draft review “is a very weak product,” said David Hayes, a former deputy Interior secretary and now head of New York University’s state energy and environmental impact center. “On the […]