The federal Bureau of Land Management finalized the restrictions on an oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Monday, aimed at protecting wildlife and other environmental resources, while complying with a 2017 law that mandated the lease sale.
In its decision, the BLM limited the lease sales to 400,000 acres, which is one-quarter of the coastal plain section of the refuge. That amount is the minimum mandated by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a regional group that has generally advocated for oil development across the North Slope, criticized the restrictions in the documents issued Monday, known as a record of decision and notice of a lease sale.
“Though our communities welcome the potential for a successful lease sale, we are clear eyed about the administration’s intent and flawed process that got us here,” said Nagruk Harcharek, Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat president, in a news release. “This final ROD and notice of a lease sale is a deliberate attempt by the Biden administration’s Interior Department to kneecap the potential of development in ANWR.”
The lease sale restrictions were first included in a plan issued by the BLM in November as part of its supplemental environmental impact statement. The Biden administration drafted this environmental study in response to litigation aimed at reversing a plan issued by President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration.
Environmental groups have opposed oil development in the refuge for decades. After the BLM announcement, legal advocacy organization Earthjustice described drilling in ANWR as “all risk with no reward.”
Earthjustice lawyer Erik Grafe, who has led litigation over the refuge, said oil development would destroy the land without benefiting taxpayers or consumers.
“We’re committed to going to court as often as necessary to defend the Arctic Refuge from oil drilling and will work toward a more sustainable future that does not depend on ever-expanding oil extraction,” Grafe said.
The scheduled Jan. 9 lease sale would be the second of two mandated by the 2017 law.
The first lease sale, held in the last days of the Trump administration in January 2021, led to nine leases being sold. However, no major oil companies submitted bids, and no exploration took place on these leases.
A state development agency, the Alaska Industry Development and Export Authority, held seven of the leases, with an Anchorage real-estate company and a small oil company buying the other two.
Those companies voluntarily gave up their leases, while the Biden administration canceled the AIDEA leases, saying that better environmental analysis was needed.
Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland have opposed oil drilling in the refuge, but the administration cited the 2017 legal mandates in its decision to proceed with the lease sale. Trump has said his new administration would pursue oil drilling in the refuge.