The United States on Saturday opened large swaths of an Alaskan oil reserve for exploration in an effort to reduce the country's dependency to foreign oil. Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed a document finalising the Bureau of Land Management's plan making 7.23 million acres (2.89 million hectares) of land in the north-west portion of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska available for energy leasing.
The leases will be subject to "strict environmental standards" and the plan includes provisions to protect water, vegetation and wildlife, the Bureau of Land Management said in a statement.
"With America's dependence on foreign oil growing each year, energy from the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska can help in the long term to increase our domestic energy production and stabilise prices," Norton said in a statement.
The US Geological Survey estimates that the reserve contains between 5.9 billion and 13.2 billion barrels of oil.
Norton also designated 102,000 acres (40,800 hectares) of land inhabited by migratory birds and marine mammals as a "Special Area," imposing in the Kasegaluk Lagoon area restrictions that prohibit permanent structures.
Environmentalists have decried proposed legislation by President George W. Bush's administration to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but the controversial bill has languished in Congress.