BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 18, 2020
Finishing a task that a Republican-controlled Congress gave it three years ago, the Trump administration has finalized plans for new oil and gas leases in one of the most pristine stretches of the world: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s a manifestly bad idea that Congress was wrong to slip into the 2017 budget bill, and in its rush to craft the new rules the administration has likely opened a door for legal challenges. But Congress should not defer to the courts on this — it must fix the problem it created. ~ Scott Martelle, a native of Maine, is a member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board