National Petroleum Reserve Alaska

The Bush administration Friday proposed opening as many as 9 million acres of Alaska's North Slope to oil and gas development, including some areas considered environmentally sensitive. The Interior Department released a draft proposal to offer oil and gas leases in the northwestern section of the government's National Petroleum Reserve, a vast stretch of Arctic tundra, lakes and ponds set aside in the 1920s for potential energy development.

The Clinton administration said Thursday that it will open 4 million acres of pristine wetlands and river valleys along Alaska's vast North Slope to new oil production, the biggest expansion of Arctic oil development in decades.