The environmentalists sacred earth in Alaska known as ANWR(Artic National Wildlife Refuge) will be opening to some oil drilling if the GOP tax bill passes.

With Republicans set to achieve a decades-long policy goal of opening a section of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, environmentalists over the weekend launched a last-ditch effort to halt the initiative, though their efforts almost surely will be in vain.

House and Senate Republicans late last week unveiled a final tax-reform package that includes a controversial provision allowing a section of ANWR — which has been one of the highest-profile battlegrounds in the energy vs. environment debate since the 1970s — to be opened to oil exploration. ANWR drilling was left out of the House’s original tax legislation but was included in the Senate’s, and now has found its way into the final version of the bill hashed out by the chambers’ conference committee last week.

Green groups are well aware that drilling in ANWR would represent a major blow to their agenda, and they’re pressuring lawmakers publicly and behind the scenes in the hopes of getting a last-minute change to the tax bill. Top environmental organizations also used public-relations moves to galvanize public opinion on their side of the debate.