Biden Administration Puts Up Minimal ANWR Acreage for Leasing in Alaska

Add another to the list: Biden's offshore leasing ban

Happy New Year! I’m resurfacing a piece from December about Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In a few days, the Biden administration will hold a “technically-meeting-requirements” lease sale offering minimal acreage with a lot of restrictions. It’s just one more way in which the administration has stymied Alaska’s economic development.

Speaking of, today’s big news is that, with two weeks to go of his term, Mr. Biden has issued an offshore drilling ban on 625 million acres of ocean in the Atlantic and Pacific. Stay tuned for updates, as Mr. Trump will undoubtedly try to reverse this move. Add another entry to the list of Biden administration actions designed to stymie energy security!

The Biden administration has repeatedly thrown Alaskans to the wolves when it comes to natural resource development in the state. Last week, the administration did it again. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced it will hold an oil and gas drilling lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The lease sale is required under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Congress. The Biden Interior Department plans to auction just 400,000 acres, the minimum required under the legislation. The sale will be held on January 9, 2025.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act requires BLM to hold two lease sales within seven years of enactment of at least 400,000 acres. The first sale occurred during the Trump administration. Inevitably, all nine leases were later revoked after Mr. Biden entered office.

The lease sale could be legally challenged, but finalizing the sale before the Biden administration finishes will make it much harder for President-elect Trump to revisit it. Bloomberg Law reports:

The decision included a long list of restrictions on drilling, such as keeping more than 1 million acres of the coastal plain unavailable for leasing and blocking all land-surface development on 58% of the land area included in the lease sale. Of the 400,000 acres up for lease, the BLM expects just 995 surface acres to be developed as wells tap a far greater area underground…

Jon Katchen, partner at Holland & Hart LLP in Anchorage, said the law requires acreage included in the January sale to have the highest potential for hydrocarbon discovery. The BLM’s decision says the land in the sale includes the highest-potential acres, but challengers could question the bureau’s decision to avoid including more acres with high oil discovery potential, he said.

The bureau is also restricting seismic exploration—an important early step in locating oil—possibly foreclosing opportunities for companies to explore within the refuge, he said.

Alaska’s congressional delegation slammed the move, with Sen. Dan Sullivan stating that “the Biden-Harris administration has never given any weight to the voices of the Alaska Native people in the region who strongly support responsible resource development in ANWR for the benefit of their communities.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski pointed out that “it’s a fitting finale for an administration that has routinely allowed Iran, Venezuela, and other adversaries to produce their resources… while attempting to shut everything down in Alaska.” Governor Mike Dunleavy stated the lease sale is “designed to fail” and “limits exploration to the largest extent possible while trying to pass it off as following the law.”

True conservation, which entails the wise use of natural resources rather than keeping them off-limits indefinitely, has never been the Biden administration’s strong suit. Here’s a short, and incomplete, list relating to Alaska alone:

• In January 2021, shortly after his inauguration, Mr. Biden paused oil and gas drilling in ANWR and in late 2023 formally revoked existing leases in ANWR granted to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. These were issued as a result of the first lease sale in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

• In January 2023, Mr. Biden also reinstated the Roadless Rule in the Tongass National Forest, stymying almost all logging and road-building in the Southeast Alaska temperate rainforest.

• In March 2023, the Biden administration grudgingly approved a scaled-down alternative for the Willow Oil Project on Alaska’s North Slope.

• In April 2024, the Bureau of Land Management shut down about half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) to any permitting for development.

• In June 2024, the Biden administration shut down the Ambler Road project in northwest Alaska, which would have unlocked a mining district promised to Alaskans under the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANICLA).

Policies like these reflect a no-use preservationist ethos that treats Alaska like a wildlife preserve and disregards the people who depend upon these resources. Alaskans, however, are optimistic that a second Trump administration will actually listen to the people who live there.

This piece was originally published on December 17, 2024, at Independent Women’s Forum Center for Energy and Conservation.