The Biden administration is narrowing the scope of oil and gas leases mandated during the Trump era before the former president assumes office for a second term.
When President-elect Trump first occupied the Oval Office in 2017, he signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which required at least two oil and gas drilling lease sales in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by December 2024.
Just weeks after Trump won the 2024 election, the Biden administration announced plans to move forward with an oil and gas lease in the region – with the limited lease amount required under the Trump-era law.
Trump auctioned off the first round of leases in 2021, but most were canceled by the Biden administration after he took office.
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With the 2024 deadline looming, the Biden administration suggested leasing the smallest amount of land required under the law.
The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a memo on the project, offering four alternatives for the second lease, but announced on Monday they would be moving forward with the minimum 400,000 acres within the northwest portion of the program area.
The lease territory has been designed to exclude regions critical for polar bear denning and the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd. The lease sale is expected to take place on Jan. 9, 2025.
Biden faced backlash from environmental groups for proceeding with the lease sale.
“Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is all risk with no reward,” Earthjustice attorney Erik Grafe, who has led litigation to protect the refuge, said in a statement. “Oil drilling would destroy this beautiful land, held sacred by Gwich’in people, and would further destabilize the global climate, but it offers zero benefit to taxpayers or consumers.”
The Biden administration also previously faced criticism for canceling the leases purchased by the Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority (AIDEA) in the waning days of the Trump administration.
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AIDEA communications director Josie Wells said much of the population of Kaktovik, a remote community on Barter Island to the east of Prudhoe Bay, was in favor of AIDEA’s lease purchase there.
“That local community is very much going to be impacted,” Wells said. “And what’s interesting is that some of the folks that are against the project don’t live in the area. They are not anywhere near that area.”
Brandon Brefczynski, another AIDEA official, characterized the cancellation as “pulling the rug out from under us.”
Fox News’ Charles Creitz contributed to this report.
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