By Dino Grandoni with Alexandra Ellerbeck, Washington Post The Trump administration is racing to sell off the right to drill deep in the Alaskan Arctic – to protect against the possibility that Joe Biden, if elected, could undo one what would be among the president’s most significant energy policy achievements.  The presidential election is putting pressure on Trump’s deputies at the Interior Department to be on track to complete a lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Inauguration Day in January 2021.  That would make it much more difficult for a future Democratic administration to reverse the decision to open the ecologically sensitive caribou and polar bear habitat to oil and gas extraction, experts say.   “They have a very narrow window,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank that opposes drilling in the Arctic refuge. “They certainly can do it, but the margins of error are smaller.” The Interior Department just finalized a plan to hold a lease sale, but didn’t say when exactly it would take place. The plan released Monday calls for the first oil and gas auction to be held by December 2021. The move opens the door for leasing on the 1.6 million-acre coastal plain on Alaska’s North Slope after drilling there was authorizing by congressional Republicans in a 2017 budget bill. Without mentioning the upcoming election, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt suggested his department may complete the lease sale soon. “I do believe that there certainly could be a lease sale by the end of the year,” Bernhardt told reporters this week, though he added that he is “not really driven by the political dynamics.” “The president has this issue as one of his priorities that he discussed with us,” he said. Looming over the leasing process is a promise from Biden to block drilling in the refuge if elected president. His campaign reiterated that commitment Monday after the Trump administration released the plan. Now both the oil industry and politicians in Alaska are eager to see leases sold sooner rather than later.  Frank Macchiarola, a senior vice president at the American Petroleum Institute, a major oil and gas lobbying group in Washington, said his organization “would support seeing a lease sale this year.” “This has been an important priority for the industry for a number of years,” he added . Perhaps no one did more to usher the drilling provision through Congress than Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Getting Congress to permit drilling there was a goal long sought by Alaska politicians, including her father, former senator and governor Frank Murkowski (R). She, too, wants “to see a lease sale this year,” she said. “We should not delay this opportunity,” she added. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Bloomberg) Despite the recent drop in oil prices because of the coronavirus pandemic, Murkowski noted that “global demand will continue for decades to come” and that it will “take time to begin responsible development and production” on the coastal plain. Issuing the leases in the five months between now and Inauguration Day is realistic — if Trump’s deputies act soon. The next step in the leasing process is a call for nominations. A required public comment period for that usually lasts around 30 days, though it can be shorter, according to Lee-Ashley.  After that, the Bureau of Land Management will release a lease sale notice. After waiting another 30 days, the agency’s Anchorage office can auction off the leases online. Read the full story If you liked this post you’ll love our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed with the latest news, commentary and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.