ALASKA REFUGE Obama to seek wilderness designation

Associated Press

JUNEAU, ALASKA

President Barack Obama is proposing to designate the vast majority of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich coastal plain, drawing an angry response from top state elected officials who see it as a land grab by the federal government.

“They’ve decided that today was the day that they were going to declare war on Alaska. Well, we are ready to engage,” said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

The designation would set aside an additional 12.2 million acres as wilderness, giving it the highest degree of federal protection available to public lands. More than 7 million acres of the refuge are managed as wilderness.