President Joe Biden passed several climate-related executive orders on his first day in office earlier this week. Among those is an order reinstating the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area, an Obama-era executive order that includes protections from off-shore oil and gas leasing in the Norton Sound as well as waters around St. Lawrence Island.
The original order was revoked in the early months of President Donald Trump’s presidency.
The reinstated order outlines policies on marine shipping, pollution, marine debris, and oil spills among other Arctic marine-related issues. The entire “resilience area” stretches over 112,300 square miles from the Kuskokwim Bay to the southern border of the Chukchi Sea.