No Bids Submitted In Latest Arctic Drilling Lease Sale (Updating)

US Interior Department says oil and gas drilling lease auction in Alaska's Artic National Wildlife Refuge yields no interest

— CHItrader (@CHItraders) January 8, 2025

After the Bureau of Land Management controversially announced a “Congressionally mandated” offshore oil and gas drilling lease sale, the initial response was no response, with no bids submitted. AS the New York Times reports, “The sale, which was required by Congress, marks the second time in four years that an effort to auction oil and gas leases in the pristine wilderness — home to migrating caribou, polar bears, musk oxen, millions of birds and other wildlife — has been a flop.”

The Department of the Interior released the following statement:“The lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reflects what we and they have known all along – there are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling. This proposal was misguided in 2017, and it’s misguided now,” said Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis. “The BLM has followed the law and held two lease sales that have exposed the false promises made in the Tax Act. The oil and gas industry is sitting on millions of acres of undeveloped leases elsewhere; we’d suggest that’s a prudent place to start, rather than engage further in speculative leasing in one of the most spectacular places in the world.”  

Arctic Refuge Lease Sale Yields No Interest

01/08/2025

Last edited 01/08/2025

Date: Wednesday, January 8, 2025
WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior today announced that the Bureau of Land Management received no bids for the congressionally mandated oil and gas lease sale for the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Arctic Refuge). The deadline to submit bids was Monday, January 6. 

The expired deadline to submit bids concludes the second congressionally mandated sale required by the 2017 Tax Act, which directed the BLM to hold two lease sales in the Coastal Plain within seven years of enactment. The first sale, held by the previous administration, similarly demonstrated low interest, yielding a total of $14.4 million in high bids on 11 tracts. Congress included the two lease sales in the Tax Act on the grounds that they would generate approximately $2 billion in revenue over 10 years.  

Of the nine leases sold during the previous Administration’s sale, the two held by oil companies were canceled?and refunded at the request of the lessees,?and the remaining seven, held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, were canceled by Secretary of the Interior Haaland due to the multiple legal deficiencies in the underlying record.?There are currently no existing leases in the Coastal Plain.  

“The lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reflects what we and they have known all along – there are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling. This proposal was misguided in 2017, and it’s misguided now,” said Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis. “The BLM has followed the law and held two lease sales that have exposed the false promises made in the Tax Act. The oil and gas industry is sitting on millions of acres of undeveloped leases elsewhere; we’d suggest that’s a prudent place to start, rather than engage further in speculative leasing in one of the most spectacular places in the world.”  

The Arctic Refuge sustains people, wildlife and fish in the northeastern corner of Alaska, a vast landscape of rich cultural traditions and thriving ecological diversity. The lands and waters are a critical home to migratory and resident wildlife, have unique recreational values, and contain the largest designated Wilderness within the National Wildlife Refuge System. The Refuge is located on the traditional homelands of the Iñupiat people of the north and the Gwich?in people of interior Alaska and Canada. 

And here’s some reaction from Earthjustice:

Earthjustice Statement on Lease Sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

Department of Interior Announces No Bids Were Received 

Anchorage — Earthjustice issued the following statement in response to the ?U.S. Department of Interior’s announcement today that it received no bids for its lease sale auctioning off parcels of the Coastal Plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil-and-gas drilling. 

“The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is cherished internationally for its ecological value and held to be a sacred place by neighboring Gwich’in communities – this is?no place to drill for oil,” said Erik Grafe, an attorney at Earthjustice who lives in Anchorage. “It’s unsurprising, then, that no major oil companies showed up to bid.?They seem to understand that drilling in this remote landscape is?too risky, too complicated, and just plain wrong. The incoming Trump administration still hasn’t gotten the memo and has vowed to keep trying to sell the Refuge for oil. We’ll continue to use the power of the law to defend this cherished place, as we have for decades.” 

The Alaska public lands area, which has never been developed for human use, is a haven for iconic wildlife, such as polar bears, Arctic foxes, and migratory birds. Indigenous Gwich’in people, who reside in villages throughout the region and rely on caribou for cultural and subsistence needs, consider the Coastal Plain to be sacred because it serves as the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou Herd.? 

The sale was mandated under a leasing program included in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, ostensibly to boost federal revenues. In August 2020, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s proposed leasing program. In September of 2023, the Biden administration cancelled oil-and-gas leases issued following a 2021 Coastal Plain lease sale, held shortly before President Trump left office.

UPDATE: Here’s a statement from the Center for Biological Diversity:

“This charade of lease sales in the Arctic Refuge would be comical if drilling weren’t so dangerous to one of our planet’s most spectacular ecosystems,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “While Trump raves about turning the Arctic Refuge into Saudi Arabia, even the most unscrupulous oil companies and banks have stayed clear of the refuge’s precious coastal plain. It’s time to put the Arctic Refuge oil fantasy to bed and stop fleecing American taxpayers. We need to focus on a rapid just transition away from fossil fuels to ensure that the Arctic’s caribou herds, polar bears, and ice seals can survive and thrive.”

Here’s another statement from the Native organization Gwich’in Steering Committee

The Gwich’in Steering Committee Celebrates Arctic Refuge Lease Sale Receiving Zero Bids and No New Threats to Sacred Lands  

Fairbanks, AK – This week, the Biden Administration held the second legally mandated lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Gwich’in Steering Committee celebrates that the Department of the Interior received no bids from oil companies or other entities in this sale. The Gwich’in Nation is united against any development or destruction of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge, and has been working tirelessly to protect it since 1988.  

Today we celebrate the perseverance of our people in this fight to protect the Arctic Refuge. We also thank the allies who raised their voices to stand with us. We know that we are not alone: the majority of Americans support protecting the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge; twenty-nine global banks now have a policy to decline underwriting oil and gas projects in the Refuge; and fourteen international insurers have also made such commitments, and the United Nations has three times sounded alarms about the harm and human rights violations to the Gwich’in from proposed oil and gas development in the sacred Coastal Plain. 

A second failed lease sale in the Arctic Refuge also clearly demonstrates that even oil companies recognize what we have known all along: drilling in the Arctic Refuge is not worth the economic risk and liability that results from development on sacred lands without the consent of Indigenous Peoples. 

Long ago the Gwich’in followed vadzaih (caribou) to see where they went and to learn their ways. They led us to the Coastal Plain of what is now called Alaska. It was here that we exchanged half of our heart with half of the heart of vadzaih. In this way we became one and would always be connected. Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit is the critical nursery grounds of the vadzaih, which are essential to the nutritional, cultural, and spiritual needs of the Gwich’in Nation. Our traditional knowledge tells us that if you develop in the nursery grounds of the caribou you destroy the caribou, and therefore, destroy the Gwich’in.   

“Today – for the first time in many years – the Gwich’in people celebrate that there are no active threats to Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit. But we also recognize that as others have sought to profit from this land before, threats to it still remain,” said Kristen Moreland, Executive Director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee. “We reaffirm our commitment to seeing it permanently protected and remain steadfast in protecting our way of life for our future generations.”