Director’s Statement on the Release of General Accounting Office Report Examining Oil and Gas Activities on National Wildlife Refuges

The General Accounting Office report released earlier today examines the long-standing issue of oil and gas activities that take place on lands in our National Wildlife Refuge System. This is a challenging issue and one that the Service has been working to address for about 70 years.

Today, the refuge system includes 542 units, more than 30,000 waterfowl production areas, and covers more than 95 million acres of land.

The GAO report addresses an issue the Service has dealt with over decades. Indeed, one of the Service