Despite Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election and his campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill,” the Biden-Harris administration quickly acted to limit the scope of an oil-and-gas lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which had been mandated under Trump’s leadership. In 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which required at least two lease sales in ANWR’s 1.6 million-acre coastal plain by the end of 2024. The first of these lease sales took place in 2021 under his administration. However, after taking office, the Biden-Harris team canceled these leases, citing “insufficient analysis” of the potential environmental impact of drilling.
Now, with the legal requirement to hold a second lease sale before the year’s end, the Biden administration has reduced the scope of that sale in alignment with its climate policies. The lease will go forward on a much smaller area — 400,000 acres, the minimum allowed by law — and will be subject to new environmental regulations. These changes are designed to make the lease sale less economically viable, limiting the number of bids from companies, much as the Biden administration did in its 2021 ANWR lease sale. This move provides ammunition for environmental groups, who argue that there’s little interest in resources that could rival the vast oil fields of Prudhoe Bay.
Under the new Biden-Harris plan, the lease sale would focus on tracts in the northern and western regions of the coastal plain, while excluding the eastern and southern areas, supposedly to protect the Porcupine Caribou Herd that migrates through these parts. Alaska is home to 32 caribou herds, but none are negatively impacted by oil development. Furthermore, the new plan reduces the allowed surface disturbance from 2,000 acres to just 995 acres and restricts seismic exploration to only the leased tracts — a shift from the previous plan, under which seismic exploration was permitted across the entire coastal plain, although it was never actually conducted. Seismic exploration uses sound waves to map underground structures and identify potential oil and gas reserves.
The first lease sale in 2021, which auctioned off 11 tracts covering more than 550,000 acres, generated $14.4 million in revenue. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), which was the largest bidder, secured 370,000 acres in the sale. AIDEA has already pledged to participate in the upcoming ANWR lease sale, with its board unanimously approving up to $20 million to prepare for potential bids. Many Alaskans and oil industry leaders continue to support drilling in the refuge, pointing to the vital revenue that taxes on oil production bring to local governments, as well as the need to ensure the continued operation of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. The North Slope’s Inupiat Eskimo population, in particular, supports drilling due to its significant economic benefits. These communities, which face harsh winters with extended periods of sub-zero temperatures and darkness, rely on the revenue to fund infrastructure and services, including the provision of firewood, as trees do not grow in the area. However, environmental activists have pressured major banks in the U.S. and Canada to stop financing oil projects in ANWR, including the five largest U.S. banks — Chase, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.
“It seems that once again the people of the North Slope are being told that our voices and lived experience are insufficient and that federal laws passed by Congress mean little in the eyes of the Biden administration’s Department of the Interior (DOI),” North Slope Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak said in a press release by the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, a regional group advocating for oil development on the North Slope. “The federal government’s latest actions are shameful and will have serious consequences for Kaktovik and the North Slope. With this latest development, DOI has soundly rejected the opportunity to partner in our effort to aptly balance development and preservation in our region.”
According to Doreen Leavitt, tribal secretary and director of natural resources for the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, “This development is a desperate Hail-Mary from a soundly defeated Biden administration that is more intent on advancing its policy agenda and ramming through flawed policies than working with Alaska Native communities to create balanced, lasting policies that advance our self-determination.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the lead author of the legislative language that requires the lease sale. She fears that the Biden-Harris plan “effectively crippled and made it not viable for anybody to bid on with the conditions that they have put in place,” indicating that potential bidders may look elsewhere as President-Elect Trump opens up federal land where development is less costly. The North Slope is a challenging environment because of severe weather conditions, permafrost to depths of up to 1700 feet, and logistical challenges in an area with few roads.
The exact date of the lease sale is yet to be determined, but the law requires it must be held by December 22. The final environmental review for the sale will be followed by a final decision from the Biden administration choosing a leasing alternative–a formal document called a “record of decision” that makes the choice final. The record of the decision is to come no earlier than 30 days after the notice of the supplemental environmental impact statement, which is expected to be published in the Federal Register scheduled for Friday, November 8.
Conclusion
President-Elect Trump has vowed to boost oil drilling in ANWR, as part of a broader plan to expand fossil fuel production on public lands across the country. In the 2017 tax bill, Congress required two ANWR lease sales before the end of 2022, the first having occurred during Trump’s first term. While the Biden-Harris administration must offer one more before the end of the year, it has limited the acreage to the fewest possible and has applied other restrictions to how drilling is to be conducted. Many Alaskans are truly upset by the intrusion from the federal government to limit the ability of the local population to obtain good jobs and to provide for a better economy for Alaskans. This is consistent with Biden’s campaign promise to end fossil fuels and the 250 actions taken to make oil and gas more difficult to produce. Despite the landslide victory of President-elect Trump, who has pledged to work with the Native people to develop their rightful lands, President Biden is placing impediments to their future to please environmental activists who oppose all oil and gas development in the United States.
