Federal Government Finalizes Oil and Gas Land Auction in Alaska Refuge

The Upper Sheenjek Valley of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska on Aug. 30, 1999. Steven Chase/USFWS/Getty Images

An auction for rights to drill in northern Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will likely be tendered to oil and gas developers in the next few months, the Interior Department has said after releasing its final environmental assessment.

Under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law during the Trump administration, the federal government was required to hold two auctions for the right to drill in the reserve by the end of 2024.

In 2023, the federal government then suspended the already issued lease for the area, citing a flawed environmental analysis and commissioning another to re-assess the ecological impacts of the Arctic Refuge oil and gas leasing program.

Under this new assessment, the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS), the lease sale will be for the smallest amount of land possible under the law, or 400,000 acres. The FSEIS examined several options, and found the chosen land would result in the least disruption to the local wildlife and habitat.

The entire reserve is roughly 19.6 million acres and home to bears, wolves, caribou, and a few hundred species of birds. Some of the land is considered sacred by the local Gwich'in people as well.

The plan for new leases will be finalized in the next 30 days. However, the Interior Department has yet to announce a date for the sale.

Environmental Groups Call for End to Leasing Program

Grassroots environmental organization Sierra Club has called for the entire mandated leasing program to be scrapped and is pushing for “Congress to repeal this destructive and failed legislative mandate and restore protections for this sacred place.”

According to the Sierra Club, the local Gwich'in Steering Committee, Tribal Governments, and Iñupiat allies all support an end to the mandated leasing program.

Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, said the location is one of the “last landscapes on the North Slope of Alaska” untouched by oil and gas corporations.

“Congress must repeal the provisions of the 2017 Act that recklessly opened the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing,” he said.

“In the meantime, we urge the Biden Administration to listen to the Gwich'in and take bold action to preserve these lands and waters for generations to come.”

Tonya Garrett, a spokesperson for the Gwich'in Steering Committee, said the local indigenous people feel that their way of life is under threat.

“Any threat to the caribou, and to the sacred lands upon which they depend, is a threat to our very way of life,” she said.

“The only path forward is to restore protections for the Arctic Refuge coastal plain, and to repeal the leasing program mandated by the 2017 Tax Act,” Garrett added.