Bureau Of Land Management Announces ‘Congressionally Mandated’ Arctic Drilling Lease Sale; Earthjustice Responds

With former President Donald Trump set to slide back into the White House and Doug Burgum, his presumed cabinet pick to head the Department of the Interior with his oil industry connections, you can expect a bigger push to explore drilling again in Alaska’s caribou- and petroleum-filled Arctic regions. With the transition from the Biden to a second Trump administration a little more than a month away, the Biden-led Bureau of Land Management announced a new Arctic drilling lease sale period. Here’s the press release from BLM:

Congressionally mandated lease sale announced for Alaska’s Coastal Plain 

Sale includes minimum acres required, creating smallest footprint of potential surface disturbance and limiting seismic exploration

WASHINGTON — Today the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a Record of Decision (ROD) for the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), which analyzed the program as well as a lease sale mandated by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (Tax Act) for the nearly 1.6-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The BLM is also issuing the Notice of Sale, for the oil and gas lease sale for 400,000 acres—the minimum required by the Tax Act—in the northwest portion of the Coastal Plain on January 9, 2025.

The 2017 Tax Act required the BLM to offer two lease sales in the Coastal Plain within seven years of enactment. During the previous Administration, the first lease sale was held and resulted in nine leases being issued. In January 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 13990, directing the Interior Department to review the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program. As a result of the deficiencies found during that review, in June 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland issued Secretary’s Order 3401, which suspended all activities related to implementing the Leasing Program, pending completion of a comprehensive analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Of the nine leases sold during the previous Administration’s sale, two were canceled and refunded at the request of the lessees and the remaining seven were canceled by the Department due to multiple legal deficiencies in the underlying record.  

The BLM will proceed with the preferred alternative from the recently published final SEIS, which best balances the five purposes of the Refuge by presenting a pathway to provide maximum protection for the conservation purposes of the Refuge while meeting the requirement under the Tax Act. The BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service worked as joint lead agencies on the SEIS, which was informed by science, public comments and cooperating agency input. The agencies consulted with Alaska Native Tribes and Corporations and engaged with a wide variety of other stakeholders to develop the analysis, using the best available data and science.

The area offered for sale will avoid important polar bear denning and Porcupine Caribou Herd calving areas. This also has the smallest footprint of potential surface disturbance due to No Surface Occupancy stipulations, and limits seismic exploration to the areas available for leasing.

Leasing is the first step in the process to develop federal oil and gas resources. Any permits or authorizations for specific on-the-ground activities on lands obtained through the lease sale would require additional review through the NEPA process. 

The SEIS, ROD and associated documents are available for review at the BLM’s National NEPA Register.

Notice of the second lease sale is posted on the BLM’s lease sale webpage for Alaska.

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The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.

Earthjustice was among the organizations speaking out about the feds’ announcement and the likelihood that in his second term Trump would push for opening up vast land for drilling purposes:

Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Still at Risk from Oil Drilling 
Interior on Track to Hold Lease Sale Before End of Biden’s Term; Greater Threats Expected Under Incoming Administration

ANCHORAGE, AK – The decades-long battle to defend Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is likely to heat up again in the new year, as oil drilling in the remote landscape was named as an agenda item in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 initiative. Even before the incoming administration takes office, the Biden administration’s Department of Interior is expected to hold a lease sale in the Arctic Refuge. Today Interior released a Record of Decision and notice of the upcoming lease sale, paving the way for a lease sale to be held before the end of this year, as directed by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that opened the Refuge to oil leasing.  

The 2017 Tax Act required Interior to hold two Arctic Refuge lease sales before the end of 2024; this will be the second. The first, held by the Trump administration in 2021, generated a mere one percent of the projected revenue promised to American taxpayers when Congress approved the leasing mandate. Few oil companies bid, since banks and insurance companies wary of the high risk refused to back drilling programs there. Although the volume of recoverable oil in the Refuge is unknown, climate scientists have warned for decades that extracting and burning any amount of oil will accelerate climate change consequences such as droughts, heat waves, wildfires and extreme storm events. Pumping oil from the Arctic Refuge won’t result in lower oil prices, according to the federal Energy Information Administration, and building the necessary infrastructure would take decades. 

“Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is all risk with no reward,” said Earthjustice attorney Erik Grafe, who has led litigation to protect the Refuge. “Oil drilling would destroy this beautiful land, held sacred by Gwich’in people, and would further destabilize the global climate, but it offers zero benefit to 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.”