Biden administration restricts oil and gas leasing in 13M acres of Alaska’s petroleum reserve; Tumbling tech stocks drag Wall Street to the finish line of another losing week
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 a yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Democratic administration prepared to approve the contentious Willow oil project.
The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated President Joe Biden’s pledge to combat climate change. Friday’s decision also completes an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half the reserve to oil and gas leasing.
Tech stocks drag Wall Street to the finish line of another losing week
The worst week for big technology stocks since the COVID crash in 2020 dragged Wall Street across the finish line of another losing week. The S&P 500 fell 0.9% Friday to close out its third straight losing week. The Nasdaq composite tumbled 2%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has less of an emphasis on tech, was an outlier and rose 0.6%. The market’s worst performers included several stocks that had been its biggest stars. Super Micro Computer lost more than a fifth of its value. Nvidia was the single heaviest weight on the S&P 500.