Courtesy of Newsweek:
In a YouTube video released Tuesday evening, President Barack Obama announced a ban on future oil and gas drilling in Bristol Bay, Alaska by way of a Presidential Memorandum.
Bristol Bay is the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world, and is surrounded by sensitive tundra. Environmental groups and Native Alaskans have been working for years to secure protection for the area. “Bristol Bay has supported Native Americans in the Alaska region for centuries," Obama said in the video announcement.
"It supports about $2 billion in the commercial fishing industry. It supplies America with 40 percent of its wild-caught seafood." "It is a beautiful natural wonder, and its something that is too precious for us to just be putting out to the highest bidder," Obama said.
Apparently this does not extend to mineral mining so it will not stop the Pebble Mine, though it may not make a difference since the EPA is already on that case.
Well I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that a certain half term governor/failed reality star is certainly going to have a rant about this in the next couple of hours or so.
However I will also say that Obama just made a lot of native Alaskans, commercial fishermen, and nature lovers very, very happy.
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