"Environmentalists and Alaska natives are challenging the Trump administration’s decision to sell drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, arguing the government gave short shrift to the impact on polar bears and the region’s other wildlife.

The groups said they filed a pair of lawsuits Monday in a U.S. district court in Alaska, setting up an election-year battle over the controversial plan, even as the Interior Department prepares for a possible auction.

One of the challenges is led by the Gwich’in Steering Committee, an organization representing indigenous people who don’t live in the refuge but subsist on the Porcupine Caribou herd that migrates through it. The Gwich’in call the caribou calving grounds on the coastal plain “the sacred place where life begins.”"

Jennifer A Dlouhy reports for Bloomberg August 24, 2020. [2]