Good news for the Arctic Refuge—no bids submitted in latest lease sale
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Good news for the Arctic Refuge—no bids submitted in latest lease sale

By Madison Grosvenor

This month, the U.S. Department of the Interior held the second lease sale mandated by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to auction off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil companies—but no one showed up. There were zero bids.  This marks the second lease sale in four years to draw no interest from major oil operators.

Herd of caribou grazes as they migrate north in the Arctic Refuge. Photo credit Alexis Bonogofsky, USFWS

This is a huge win for the Arctic Refuge and the Gwich’in people who have always protected the birthing and nursing rounds of the Porcupine caribou herd.

“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,” said Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, in a press statement. ” But we also recognize that as others have sought to profit from this land before, threats to it still remain, we reaffirm our commitment to seeing it permanently protected and remain steadfast in protecting our way of life for our future generations.”

Americans want this place protected

The first Arctic Refuge lease sale in 2021 drew no major oil company interest. One minor oil and gas operator, and speculator, and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a funding agency of the State of Alaska, stepped in with bids set at the bare minimum—$25 per acre. Just 11 out of the 22 tracts offered drew bids and only 9 leases were signed. The sale generated a scant 0.67 percent of the $2.2 billion in revenue promised under the Tax Act.

Members of the Gwich’in nation during the IMAGO trip in the Refuge. Photo by Emily Sullivan.

More to the point, the leasing plan driving this 2021 lease sales disregarded the devasting impacts that oil and gas extraction would have on the land, water, animals, local communities, and climate. That a deeply legally problematic leasing plan led to a lease sale with little industry interest was a clear indictment of the Trump administration’s “drill for the sake of drilling” policy and a glaring confirmation that the leasing program was a financial pipe dream from the start.

The lack of interest in this month’s second lease sale reaffirms that the needless effort to drill on the coastal plain makes no economic sense.

“The effort to drill on land sacred to the Gwich’in people and essential to Arctic health and future generations needs to end once and for all,” said Brook Brisson, senior staff attorney for Trustees for Alaska. “Americans want this place protected, and the oil industry has again shown no interest. It’s time to shift to energy solutions that work for everyone.”

The state of our cases

We have been involved in several lawsuits over the years focused on protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We took the Trump administration to court over its leasing program in 2020 within days after it was adopted. Upon taking office, the Biden administration immediately suspended the leases and all activities in January 2021 due to its many legal problems, and began a supplemental review to address the legal issues left by the Trump administration. Our lawsuit challenging the Arctic Refuge leasing program was paused as the Biden administration undertook that supplemental review.

Gwich’in steering committee ad opposing buying leases in the Refuge, ADN.

In 2021 and 2023, we intervened in two related lawsuits: one by the State of Alaska and AIDEA challenging the suspension of leases, which we successfully defended in U.S. District Court (this case is now on appeal), and another brought by AIDEA challenging the cancellation of its leases (this case is currently in the U.S. District Court). The Biden administration cancelled AIDEA’s leases because of the serious legal flaws with the leasing program.  All three lawsuits are still pending.

This past November, Interior released a revised environmental impact statement with stronger safeguards, but lasting protections for the Refuge remain in Congress’s hands.

What’s next?

The lack of oil industry interest should mean an end to the economically unviable attempts to drill in the Arctic Refuge, but we know from our decades of work that we need to stay vigilant.

It’s clear that oil companies lack interest in drilling in the Arctic Refuge and deem it not worth the cost.  Yet there’s a disconnect between the lack of industry interest and the political push for drilling, as demonstrated by the Dunleavy administration’s lawsuit against the Biden administration over restrictions in its leasing plan for the Arctic Refuge.

Until Congress acts to take the leasing program off the books and restore protections for the Arctic Refuge, we will need to continue protecting the Refuge from potential threats since those promoting an oil and gas agenda now look to the Trump administration for an easy path to Arctic drilling with few restrictions.

For now, the Arctic Refuge is free from oil and gas, and there is not a single acre leased. Our work is to make sure that it stays that way.

Sunset in the Arctic Refuge. Photo by Danielle Brigida, USFWS.