The Department of Interior schedules an Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil lease sale this month!
The Interior Department has scheduled an oil lease sale to take place in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on 10 January 2025. The lease sale, scheduled to make 400,000 acres in the refuge available for oil drilling, fulfills the minimum acreage required for the sale under a mandate Congress included in its 2017 tax legislation.
Under the plan Interior announced, 20% of the acres made available will have standard lease terms. Nearly 60% will have conditions barring permanent structures. Surface disturbances from oil and gas development can occur on no more than 995 acres. Alaska’s economy is heavily reliant on oil production, with oil and gas jobs accounting for about 25% of employment and generating around half of the state’s economic output. Oil also provides up to 90% of the state’s unrestricted General Fund revenue.
The upcoming lease sale is the latest in the back-and-forth between Democratic and Republican lawmakers on how much, if any, of the 1.6 million acres in ANWR to make available for fossil fuel development. Republicans in their 2017 tax law required at least two lease sales be scheduled.
The first Trump administration held an oil lease sale in ANWR in January 2021. The Biden administration canceled those leases in September 2023, saying the environmental review conducted before the lease sale was “legally deficient.” Companies that had their leases canceled are suing the Department of Interior to win them back.
The Biden administration put under conservation millions of acres in Alaska. President-Elect Trump is expected to make drilling in Alaska a priority for his second administration. He’s expected to reverse many of the Biden administration’s environmental regulations through executive actions early in his second term, including a more favorable leasing program for federal lands and waters.