Updated Nov. 15: A Senate committee on Wednesday voted to approve legislation that would open a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, moving one step closer to achieving a priority for Alaska Republicans and other conservatives.

The dispute over the refuge, a pristine habitat in northern Alaska, has been simmering for decades. But with Republicans holding both houses of Congress and the presidency, the prospects for opening the refuge to drilling are better than they have been in years.

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the Republican chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee who has long pressed for drilling in the refuge, has called the bill “a tremendous opportunity” that would raise about $1 billion over a decade.

Environmental activists have vowed to oppose the Republican effort. Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said the bill “would allow roads, pipelines, gravel mines and well pads to be erected across the entire birthing grounds of the coastal plain, where caribou calve and where polar bear mothers den.”