ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Opponents of oil drilling in America’s largest wildlife refuge have a message for oil drillers and the people who finance them: Don’t become the company known for the demise of America’s polar bears.

The Department of the Interior hopes to conduct a lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by the end of the year but environmental groups say they will challenge those plans in federal court and the court of public opinion.

“We will not tolerate the administration’s brazen attempt to paper over the impacts of this disastrous proposal, and we will see them in court,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive director of Defenders of Wildlife.

They claim an environmental review was rushed, incomplete and preordained and that it presents only a fraction of the long-term damage that will occur if drilling rigs are allowed into what’s now a wilderness area.

“Speculative threats of legal action cannot cloud the reasoning contained in our analysis, which was developed with information provided by numerous stakeholders, including tribal elders, wildlife biologists, anthropologists and elected officials, in addition to data-sharing with the Canada government’s Environment Yukon and dialogue with the International Porcupine Caribou Board, as well as almost 2 million public comments submitted during the process,” Bureau of Land Management spokesman Derrick Henry said in a statement.

The refuge in the northeast corner of Alaska was created in 1960 and expanded by Congress in 1980 to nearly the size of South Carolina. About 12,500 square miles are formally designated as wilderness. However, Congress ordered that 2,300 square miles of refuge coastal plain be studied for natural resources.

The coastal plain is the area between the Arctic Ocean and mountains of the Brooks Range. During winter, pregnant polar bears use it for dens. In spring, it’s the preferred nursery for the Porcupine Caribou Herd.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the plain holds 10.4 billion barrels of oil. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has called the coastal plain North America’s greatest prospect for conventional petroleum production. Drilling is supported by virtually everyone elected in recent years to statewide office in Alaska because it would create jobs, put oil in the trans-Alaska pipeline and put cash in the coffers of state government.

Dan Joling is an Associated Press writer.