Obama Limits on Arctic Drilling Spark GOP Backlash
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President Barack Obama’s call to restrict oil exploration on 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge probably won’t have much practical impact for an area already off-limits to drillers, though it’s created a new fault line with the Republican-led Congress.
The White House on Sunday said it would ask Congress to designate “core areas” of the 19.8 million-acre refuge as wilderness, including its 1.5 million-acre coastal plain that geologists believe lies atop a rich oil reservoir.