The U.S. has opened more offshore areas to oil drilling — including parts of the controversial Alaska Arctic frontier — in the Obama administration’s push to further reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

The plan, released by the Department of Interior, allows the leasing of 12 areas in the Gulf of Mexico, which suffered from the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, and three of the coast of Alaska, including the Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea, and Cook Inlet Planning Areas, between 2012 and 2017.

Drilling off the Alaskan coast has been hotly contested by environmentalists because of concerns about sensitive environmental areas and the impact on Native Alaskans who rely on those areas for food and clothing.

Because of that, the government