Federal Judge’s Ruling Offers A Possible Lifeline For National Petroleum Reserve Land Coveted For Drilling

From the Alaska Beacon, the Trump administration’s plans to drill in the once protected National Petroleum Reserve took a hit in an area the Department of the Interior wants to open up for natural gas lease sales. Per the Alaska Beacon, a judicial ruling would reduce a lot of the land the federal government wants available for sale. Here are some details:

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason’s ruling, issued Monday, ensures that a Native coalition’s land agreement, known as the Nuiqsut Trilateral right of way, “shall remain in full force and effect,” at least temporarily.

The agreement is a conservation pact that gave Nuiqsut residents some control over oil development in about a million acres in the Teshekpuk Lake area. The Trump administration’s Department of the Interior canceled that right-of-way agreement in December, prompting a January lawsuit from the Nuiqsut parties.

As a result of Gleason’s ruling, the Trump administration’s National Petroleum Reserve lease sale likely cannot include acreage within the Nuiqsut right of way. That sale was originally planned to span 5.5 million acres, including most of the right-of-way territory. Bids are to be opened by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday.

Exactly how the BLM will change the lease sale or handle submitted bids was yet to be determined Monday afternoon. The Department of the Interior has not yet commented.