Lawsuits filed in Alaska and Washington, D.C. challenge lease sale tied to oil development push
Conservation organizations and an Iñupiat group filed legal challenges Tuesday to the Trump administration’s renewed push for oil and gas development in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, along with an upcoming lease sale they say would open ecologically sensitive lands that have long been protected. The lawsuits target the Interior Department’s renewed planning and the March 18 lease sale, which the plaintiffs say would be the reserve’s first sale since 2019 and the first under a law passed by Congress last year directing at least five lease sales during a 10-year period.
One lawsuit was filed in federal court in Alaska by Earthjustice on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth. A second lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., by The Wilderness Society and Grandmothers Growing Goodness, a group seeking to draw attention to the impacts of oil and gas development on Iñupiat communities.
The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska covers an area on Alaska’s North Slope roughly the size of Indiana and provides habitat for wildlife including caribou, bears, wolves and millions of migratory birds, according to the complaint descriptions reported by the Associated Press. Both lawsuits list as defendants the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and top officials at those agencies. The Earthjustice complaint also includes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which falls under Interior.
The lawsuits are part of an ongoing dispute over how much of the reserve should be opened for development. The Associated Press reported that a plan adopted by the Trump administration would make about 80% of the reserve available for oil and gas leasing. Supporters have pointed to the reserve’s name and argue the federal approach balances allowances for drilling with protections for sensitive areas, while critics argue the plan improperly shifts protections for lands with special designations.
Both lawsuits say next month’s planned lease sale includes tracts in areas near Teshekpuk Lake and the Colville River that had been designated as special for wildlife, subsistence or other values. They also say the sale notices provide no rationale for including those tracts and that the Bureau of Land Management did not acknowledge prior findings that those areas should be off limits to leasing.
In Earthjustice’s case in Alaska, the complaint argues that the management plan underpinning the lease sale “unlawfully removes lands from the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area and eliminates the Colville River Special Area.” The lawsuit cites a longstanding federal law that it says gives the Interior secretary authority “to designate special areas for maximum protection of identified significant resource values,” and argues that Congress did not authorize the secretary to remove or eliminate special areas where those lands still contain the significant resource values that supported their designation.
Teshekpuk Lake, described in the filing, is the largest lake in Alaska’s arctic region. The complaint also says the Colville River and associated wetlands provide habitat for nesting raptors and support subsistence activities for North Slope residents.
Earthjustice’s lawsuit asks a judge to invalidate any leases issued in the upcoming sale and to block future sales based on what it says are flawed environmental reviews and land management plans.
The second lawsuit, filed by The Wilderness Society and Grandmothers Growing Goodness, focuses in part on an Interior Department decision that canceled a right-of-way issued during the Biden administration. That right-of-way, the Associated Press reported, was intended to protect the Teshekpuk caribou herd and habitat across roughly 1 million acres within the Teshekpuk special area. The plaintiffs in Washington, D.C., also challenge the validity of the lease tracts offered that they say fall within the now-canceled right of way and other nearby tracts that they say overlap with caribou habitat and that the Bureau of Land Management classified as having high oil and gas development potential.
An email seeking comment was sent to an Interior Department spokesperson about the lawsuits, according to the Associated Press report.