'We're fighting for our way of life': Republican tax bill presents grave threat to Alaska's tribal groups

The Senate tax bill could prise open the vast Arctic national wildlife refuge to oil and gas drilling, and the Gwich'in fear they could be erased from their home

For tribal people in northern Alaska, a Republican tax overhaul that was hastily cobbled together in congressional backrooms 3,000 miles away has raised fears that their entire way of life could be erased from this frigid corner of the US.

The Senate's tax bill may land a decisive blow in a 30-year environmental battle over the Arctic national wildlife refuge, a vast untrammeled area hailed as America's Serengeti by conservationists, by finally prising open the wilderness to oil and gas drilling. The region's Gwich'in people fret that their primary food source, caribou, may be lost, and with it the future of the tribe itself.