Do not expand oil and gas drilling on federal wildlife preservation lands
Energy and environment
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
Drilling on these lands happens only if oil companies bid on leases and banks finance the work, and both are corporate decisions. Those decisions have already delivered the outcome twice: the January 2021 Arctic Refuge lease sale drew no bids from major oil companies, and the January 2025 sale drew no bids at all. All six major U.S. banks ruled out financing Arctic oil and gas development after sustained public and shareholder pressure, including resolutions presented at bank annual meetings.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Common Ground of the American People (brochure), Program for Public Consultation / Voice of the People, 2024
- Not a Single Major US Bank Is Now Willing to Finance Arctic Drilling, Sierra Club, 2020-12
- Oil and gas lease sale in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge draws no bids, Alaska Beacon, 2025-01-08
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Organized public and shareholder pressure on the major U.S. banks to rule out financing for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and publicized the shareholder resolutions filed at those banks.
Bank of America Faces Shareholder Pressure Over Arctic Drilling, Sierra Club, 2021
Filed a shareholder resolution at Bank of America on the reputational risk of financing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and later filed proposals asking the bank to phase out financing for new fossil fuel expansion.
Bank of America Faces Shareholder Pressure Over Arctic Drilling, Sierra Club, 2021
Filed a shareholder proposal at Wells Fargo asking for a time-bound phase-out of financing for new fossil fuel expansion.
Filed a shareholder proposal at Citigroup asking the bank to disclose its policies on respecting Indigenous rights in its financing decisions.
Filed proposals at Bank of America and Wells Fargo asking each bank to disclose how it plans to meet its 2030 climate targets.
4 campaigns on record
Report to shareholders on how effective Citigroup's policies, practices and performance indicators are at respecting internationally recognised human rights standards for Indigenous Peoples' rights in its existing and proposed general corporate and project financing.
With Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, NJ
Result: Not approved at the April 25, 2023 annual meeting: 402,974,154 for, 878,173,432 against, 16,234,292 abstentions and 220,401,106 broker non-votes. That is 31.1 percent of the shares voted for, against or abstaining, the basis on which the campaign was reported as 31.06 percent, and 31.4 percent of the votes cast for and against. It was item 8 on the ballot.
Adopt a policy for a time-bound phase-out of the bank's lending and underwriting to projects and companies engaging in new fossil fuel exploration and development.
Result: 8.50 percent in favor at the April 25, 2023 annual meeting: 248,827,799 for, 2,629,078,280 against, 49,309,312 abstentions and 349,412,800 broker non-votes. It was item 9 on the ballot and was not approved. Wells Fargo reports the percentage as votes cast for the proposal against the total cast for, against and abstaining.
Disclose transition plans for meeting the bank's 2030 climate targets.
Result: 28.5 percent support
Explain how the bank will deal with the reputational risk associated with financing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Result: Not settled. No proposal about Arctic drilling or fossil fuel financing appears on Bank of America's 2021 annual meeting ballot: the four shareholder proposals voted on April 20, 2021 were on proxy access, action by written consent, a change in organizational form and a racial equity audit. Whether this campaign was withdrawn after a company commitment, omitted, or was an engagement rather than a filing is not settled by any document that could be opened.
Bank of America Faces Shareholder Pressure Over Arctic Drilling, Sierra Club, 2021
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Common Ground of the American People's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.