The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced Thursday that it would soon open for sale oil and gas leases of land in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The Republican-controlled Congress passed and President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, which opened portions of ANWR to oil and gas drilling. The Act mandated the sale of at least two leases of not less than 400,000 acres each in the Coastal Plain area, a 1.5 million-acre region out of the more than 19 million acres in ANWR. The region is home to grizzly and polar bears, gray wolves, caribou, and hundreds of species of birds. The notice of sale, including details about the specific tracts available, will be available on December 7, and the public will be able to watch the opening and reading of the bids via livestream on January 6.

Alaska’s congressional delegation, Senators Murkowski and Sullivan and Representative Young, issued a joint statement praising the forthcoming lease sale. They emphasized the jobs and other benefits to Alaska’s economy that will come with the development of the land, and the sale’s importance “for American energy dominance.” Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune called it “a shameful attempt by Donald Trump to give one last handout to the fossil fuel industry on his way out the door, at the expense of our public lands and our climate.”

The rush to sell before president-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20 will make it difficult for Biden to fulfill his campaign promise to “permanently protect” ANWR from oil and gas drilling.