The lawsuit was initially filed by the Biden administration, which had sought to void oil and gas leases that AIDEA had acquired in a January 2021 sale. In court filings, Biden attorneys claimed that the sale—authorized by then-former President Donald Trump—was inherently flawed and therefore unenforceable.
A federal judge in Alaska has issued a ruling that could clear the way for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
According to The Alaska Beacon, Anchorage-based U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason wrote that the federal Department of the Interior had acted unlawfully when it canceled oil and gas leases owned by the state’s public investment bank, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.
“Having reviewed the parties’ arguments, the court concludes that [the Department of the Interior] was required to obtain a court order before canceling AIDEA’s leases,” Gleason wrote.
Alaska Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills has since posited the decision as a victory.
“The state looks forward to working with the current federal administration on fully realizing the vast potential of [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] to grow Alaska’s economy and help America’s energy independence,” Mills told the Alaska Beacon in an email statement. “It is unfortunate we have lost a significant amount of time litigating, instead of moving forward with field studies and development. We will continue to review the decision in more detail but it’s definitely a victory.”
The lawsuit was initially filed by the Biden administration, which had sought to void oil and gas leases that AIDEA had acquired in a January 2021 sale. In court filings, Biden attorneys claimed that the sale—authorized by then-former President Donald Trump—was inherently flawed and therefore unenforceable.
The Department of the Interior first suspended AIDEA’s leases before canceling them outright.
Gleason, noes the Beacon, had previously upheld the Biden administration’s suspension order.
However, Gleason’s cited sections of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, including a provision that stipulates that the federal Department of the Interior “shall manage the oil and gas program on the Coastal Plain in a manner similar to the administration of lease sales under the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976.”
“Among the NPRPA’s implementing regulations is a regulation that provides ‘(p)roducing leases or leases known to contain valuable deposits of oil or gas may be canceled only by court order.”
The Department of the Interior, Gleason observed, had never obtained the court order necessary to force a cancelation of AIDEA’s leases.
“Accordingly, federal defendants’ cancellation of AIDE’s leases was not in accordance with law because it failed to seek a court order,” Gleason wrote.
Indigenous rights activist and environmental advocacy organizations have been quick to criticize the court’s decision. Kristen Moreland, executive director of the non-profit Gwich’in Steering Committee, said that opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling could wreak havoc upon not just the environment but local tribes’ ways of life, too.
“This disappointing ruling ignores the destruction oil drilling will do to our communities and only deepens our resolve in fiercely defending the coastal plain from oil and gas extraction,” she said. “We will always protect the caribou, our way of life, and future generations.”
Sources
Alaska wins lawsuit that could open Arctic refuge to oil exploration
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