A long-planned deal to allow oil and gas exploration in Alaska's Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge is off. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, after considering more than 100,000 public comments, scotched the deal at the refuge north of Fairbanks, which is the nation's third-largest wildlife refuge and is about the size of Indiana. Fairbanks-based Doyon Ltd. isn't unhappy about the decision because the deal involved a land swap, and geologists in recent years said the land the firm already owns within the boundaries of the refuge also has significant potential to produce oil and gas, according to Kyle Hopkins' story in the Anchorage Daily News. Wonder if this decision would have been made this way in the last administration?
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