This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Saturday, September 5th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

When the federal government finalized plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge to oil drilling, environmentalists were both at the table, in fighting

the project wholesale, but also not at the table in terms of having a shot at bidding for those oil

leases. Sean Regan, a vice president at the bidding for those oil leases.

Sean Regan, a vice president at the Property and Environment Research Center,

argues that even a little injection of property rights

into the leasing process would likely mean good things for conservation.

The issue of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been on the radar, particularly

I think of Republicans, at least since 2008.

Am I wrong in that?

The debate over Anwar drilling dates back decades to when Congress authorized drilling to take place there and it's

been a political football, you know, through many different administrations over the past several decades and you know just now getting

to the point of some resolution in terms of direction from Congress about what to do as

it relates to drilling in Anwar.

This story didn't really make a lot of waves and I think it maybe it should have

that the Trump administration has finalized plans to allow for the auctioning of oil and gas rights in the heart of Anwar.

So from the perspective of people who'd like to prevent that from happening, what do they see as the big threat?

Well, this is a wildlife refuge.

It's 19 million acres, and the area in question here is a much smaller portion of that larger

wildlife refuge and it you know we there's still a lot of unknowns we don't know exactly how much

...