JUNEAU (AP) - The federal Bureau of Land Management announced Aug. 3 it is moving ahead with a new environmental review of oil and gas leasing in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge after the Interior secretary said she found “multiple legal deficiencies’’ in an earlier review.
That prior review, under the administration of then-President Donald Trump, provided a basis for the first lease sale on the refuge’s coastal plain, held in the final days of Trump’s presidency.
A state of Alaska agency was the main bidder in the January lease sale, committing to pay about $50 million in bonus bids and annual lease fees for the 10-year term — even if it never spends anything more to explore or develop the acreage, or finds oil.
Regardless of the federal decision to again review the lease sale, the head of the state agency last week called the leases “valid and enforceable.”
The federal land agency said there will be a public process to determine the scope of the new review and identify major issues related to a leasing program, which the government has put on hold. The state has objected to the hold.
President Joe Biden, in a January executive order, called on the Interior secretary to temporarily halt activities related to the leasing program, review the program and, “as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, conduct a new, comprehensive analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the oil and gas program.’’
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in June said her review identified deficiencies in the record underpinning the leases, including an environmental review that failed to “adequately analyze a reasonable range of alternatives” to the oil and gas development plans.
She announced plans at that time for the new review and halted activities related to the leasing program while the analysis was pending.
Conservationists welcomed a new review but also called on Congress to repeal the provisions of law calling for lease sales.
A law passed in 2017 called for at least two lease sales within the coastal plain, with the first before Dec. 22, 2021, and the second before Dec. 22, 2024, the land agency has said. The first lease sale was rushed ahead in the final days of the Trump administration.
Alaska political leaders have long pushed to open the coastal plain to development. Drilling supporters view development as a way to boost oil production, generate revenue and create or sustain jobs.
Critics have said the area off the Beaufort Sea provides habitat for wildlife including caribou, polar bears and birds — and should be off limits to drilling. The Indigenous Gwich’in consider the coastal plain sacred and have expressed concern about impacts to a caribou herd they rely on for subsistence.
The main bidder in the lease sale was the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state corporation.
The authority holds seven, 10-year leases, said Alan Weitzner, the corporation’s executive director.
Weitzner said the corporation received a letter from an Interior Department official notifying it of a suspension of operations on those leases, and that the review would “determine whether the leases should be reaffirmed, voided or subject to additional mitigation measures.’’
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