World News for Students of English

19-11-2020 07:00

The US president, Donald Trump, wants to sell drilling rights in Alaska, and he wants to do it fast before the new president, Joe Biden, takes over.

Experts said that there could be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of oil in Alaska, but environmentalists argue that Alaska is one of the country’s last truly wild places. There is a large population of polar bears, reindeer, and birds.

The president-elect, Joe Biden, promised that he would stop all oil exploration in Alaska, and he said that he would protect the area. But if Donald Trump sells the drilling rights before Joe Biden becomes the president, it can be very difficult for Biden to change the situation.

Difficult words: drilling rights (when a company is officially allowed to get oil from the ground), environmentalist (a person who cares about and protects the environment actively), president-elect (the person who people elected to become a president but he has not started his job yet), oil exploration (when scientists travel around a place to find out if it is a good place to get oil from).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.