The Interior Department released a new regulation Friday that will affect 13 million acres in Alaska, prohibiting drilling for oil on the land.

The Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska rule will affect 40% of Alaska’s reserve, as 10.6 million acres will be completely protected by the Bureau of Land Management while the remaining amount will have limited protection. According to the Interior Department, this area is a “globally significant intact habitat for wildlife, including grizzly and polar bears, caribou and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.”

President Joe Biden expressed his pleasure in the regulation in a statement Friday, saying he is “proud” of the conservation effort.

“From safeguarding sacred lands near the Grand Canyon to protecting Alaskan treasures, my Administration has conserved more than 41 million acres of lands and waters,” Biden’s statement read. “But as the climate crisis imperils communities across the country, more must be done. My Administration will continue to take ambitious action to meet the urgency of the climate crisis, protect America’s lands and waters, and fulfill our responsibility to the next generation of Americans.”

“There is no question, using the best available science and incorporating Indigenous Knowledge practiced over millennia, that these decisions will help biological, cultural, historic and subsistence resources, safeguarding the way of life for the Indigenous people who have called this special place home since time immemorial,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.  

Additionally, the Bureau of Land Management issued its own ruling on a road some 211 miles long in north central Alaska to establish the Ambler Mining District. This road, which would result in mining copper, zinc, cobalt, and other minerals, could, per the department, “irrevocably impact resources, including those supporting important subsistence uses, in ways that cannot be adequately mitigated.”

“We are deeply disappointed by the Bureau of Land Management’s politically motivated decision to block construction of the Ambler Access Project,” Ambler Metals Managing Director Kaleb Froehlich said in a statement. “In doing so, the Department of the Interior is depriving Alaska Native communities of thousands of good-paying jobs and millions of dollars of badly needed tax revenues and economic investment, as well as preventing the United States from developing a domestic supply of minerals that are critical for clean energy technology and national security.”

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Amber Metals cited support from First Chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council PJ Simon and the area’s assemblyman, Miles Cleveland.

Alaska’s North Slope contains six of the 100 largest oil fields in the United States. The state was sixth in oil production last year, producing 426,000 barrels per day. 

The U.S. Interior Department on Friday essentially rejected the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority’s proposal to build the Ambler Road, a 211-mile industrial road that would have cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve to access copper and zinc deposits in Northwest Alaska.

The Interior’s Bureau of Land Management chose a “no action” option in its environmental analysis, effectively ensuring AIDEA would not receive a right-of-way to build the road across federal lands. The Biden administration said the road, also known as the Ambler Access Project, would cause irreparable damage to wildlife including caribou, which many local people rely on for food.

The administration also announced stronger protections for 13 million acres inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a vast swath of oil-rich — but environmentally sensitive — federal land in the Arctic.

Both Alaska senators, Republicans Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski expressed outrage even before the decisions were formally announced. They said the decisions hamper the state’s economy and domestic resource development.

“It’s more than a one-two punch to Alaska. When you take off access to our resources, when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore,” said Murkowski in a press conference on Thursday. “This is the energy insecurity that we’re talking about.”

Environmentalists and some Indigenous rights groups meanwhile, applauded the decisions.

“The regulations announced today will benefit the Western Arctic’s wildlife and subsistence resources and the Indigenous communities that depend on them, as well as provide greater resilience against climate change,” said Meda DeWitt, the Wilderness Society’s interim state director. “This rule is good news for everyone who cares about America’s public lands.”

RELATED: Murkowski and Sullivan rail at federal moves to block Ambler Road and preserve parts of NPR-A

JUNEAU, Alaska — The Biden administration said Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres (5.3 million hectares) of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm.

The decision — part of an ongoing, yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Biden administration prepared to approve the controversial Willow oil project.

The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated Biden’s pledge to combat climate change. Friday’s decision also cements an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half the reserve to oil and gas leasing.

A group of Republican lawmakers, led by Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, jumped out ahead of Friday’s announcement about drilling limitations in the National Petroleum-Reserve Alaska even before it was publicly announced. Sullivan called it an “illegal” attack on the state’s economic lifeblood, and predicted lawsuits.

“It’s more than a one-two punch to Alaska, because when you take off access to our resources, when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore, you cannot move it — this is the energy insecurity that we’re talking about,” Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said.

The decision by the Interior Department doesn’t change the terms of existing leases in the reserve or affect currently authorized operations, including Willow.

In an olive branch to environmentalists, the Biden administration also Friday recommended the rejection of a state corporation’s application related to a proposed 210-mile (338-kilometer) road in the northwest part of the state to allow mining of critical mineral deposits, including including copper, cobalt, zinc, silver and gold. There are no mining proposals or current mines in the area, however, and the proposed funding model for the Ambler Road project is speculative, the Interior Department said in a statement.

Sullivan accused the administration of undermining U.S. national security interests with both decisions. Alaska political leaders have long accused the Biden administration of harming the state with decisions limiting the development of oil and gas, minerals and timber.

President “Joe Biden is fine with our adversaries producing energy and dominating the world’s critical minerals while shutting down our own in America, as long as the far-left radicals he feels are key to his reelection are satisfied,” Sullivan said Thursday at a Capitol news conference with 10 other GOP senators. “What a dangerous world this president has created.”

Biden defended his decision regarding the petroleum reserve.

Alaska’s “majestic and rugged lands and waters are among the most remarkable and healthy landscapes in the world,” are critical to Alaska Native communities and “demand our protection,” he said in a statement.

Nagruk Harcharek, president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a group whose members include leaders from across much of Alaska’s North Slope region, has been critical of the administration’s approach. The group’s board of directors previously passed a resolution opposing the administration’s plans for the reserve.

The petroleum reserve — about 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — is home to caribou and polar bears and provides habitat for millions of migrating birds. It was set aside around a century ago as an emergency oil source for the U.S. Navy, but since the 1970s has been overseen by the U.S. Interior Department. There has been ongoing, longstanding debate over where development should occur.

Most existing leases in the petroleum reserve are clustered in an area that’s considered to have high development potential, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Interior Department. The development potential in other parts of the reserve is lower, the agency said.

The rules announced Friday would place restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in areas designated as special for their wildlife, subsistence or other values and call for the agency to evaluate regularly whether to designate new special areas or bolster protections in those areas. The agency cited as a rationale the rapidly changing conditions in the Arctic due to climate change, including melting permafrost and changes in plant life and wildlife corridors.

Environmentalists were pleased.

“This huge, wild place will be able to remain wild,” Ellen Montgomery of Environment America Research & Policy Center said.

Jeremy Lieb, an attorney with Earthjustice, said the administration had taken an important step to protect the climate with the latest decision. Earthjustice is involved in litigation currently before a federal appeals court that seeks to overturn Willow’s approval.

A decision in that case is pending.