WASHINGTON – Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowksi, R-Alaska, released legislation Wednesday that would open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling for the first time in a generation, by calling for at least two major lease sales over the next decade.

The budget measure directs federal officials to auction off mineral rights in areas encompassing at least 400,000 acres each in the refuge’s coastal plain, which is also known as its “1002 area.” The measure requires at least a 16.67 royalty rate and dictates that the revenues would be evenly split between the federal government and Alaska.

Surface development on the coastal plain must not span more than 2,000 acres, according to the bill.

Murkowski, who has scheduled a markup on the bill for Nov. 15, said the measure represents “a tremendous opportunity for both Alaska and our country.”

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that such sales, the first of which must take place within four years of the bill’s enactment, would raise nearly $1.1 billion over the next decade.

But environmentalists have questioned those projections, noting that recent sales on Alaska’s North Slope have failed to produce the level of revenue that would generate that much money. They note that Congress has held off authorizing exploration in the refuge for more than three decades, partly out of concern that it could damage the habitat for polar bears, caribou, migrating waterfowl and other species.

Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement that it could give oil buried beneath the refuge “to China and other countries hungry for exports.”

“It 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,” Kolton added.

But Republicans see the drilling measure as a crucial way to raise revenue for their broader budget bill, and the idea enjoys support from the Trump administration. The Interior Department is exploring whether to allow seismic exploration in the 19.6 million-acre refuge for the first time in more than 30 years, but only Congress can greenlight oil and gas drilling there.

Alaska’s junior Republican senator Dan Sullivan, its sole House member Don Young, R, and its Independent governor, Bill Walker, released a joint statement with Murkowski endorsing the bill.

“Much like Midwestern states harvest the resources that grow on the ground, like wheat and corn, Alaska must harvest the resources in our ground,” Walker said.