The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced Friday that it will hold an oil and gas lease sale for Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain on June 5. The sale marks the first under a law passed by Congress last year calling for four lease sales in the refuge’s coastal plain over a 10-year period. The announcement comes amid ongoing litigation and after two prior Arctic Refuge sales drew no interest from major oil companies.
The sale reflects the Trump administration’s aggressive expansion of drilling across Alaska, but faces strong opposition from Gwich’in indigenous leaders and conservation groups who view the coastal plain as sacred and worry about environmental damage to the caribou herds and wildlife habitat the region provides.
Sacred lands and indigenous opposition
The Arctic refuge coastal plain borders the Beaufort Sea in northeast Alaska, featuring rolling hills and tundra that support muskoxen and migratory birds. The plain provides calving grounds for a caribou herd on which the Gwich’in people depend, and the refuge itself is the largest in the country, covering an area roughly the size of South Carolina.
“The Trump Administration’s relentless push to auction off this sacred land despite overwhelming public opposition and industry that has already signaled they are not interested makes clear that this administration values corporate interests over the rights and lives of Indigenous peoples,” Galen Gilbert, first chief of Arctic Village Council, said in a statement. “We will continue to fight with every tool available to protect the Coastal Plain for our children and all future generations.”
Prior Arctic Refuge sales attracted no bidders
The June sale would be the third federal oil and gas lease sale in Alaska in 2026 alone. A sale last month for the aging Cook Inlet basin drew no bidders. A lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where the large Willow oil project is under development, drew hundreds of bids despite pending legal challenges.
Bill Groffy, the Bureau of Land Management’s acting director, said in a statement that the success of the petroleum reserve sale signaled a “robust and continuing demand for Alaskan energy, underscoring the need for more opportunities like the Coastal Plain sale.”
Drilling supporters, including Alaska political leaders, argue that prior Arctic Refuge offerings were too limited to draw interest from major oil companies. The first Trump-era Arctic Refuge lease sale, held near the end of his first term, has been entangled in litigation. A second sale in early 2025, shortly before President Joe Biden left office, yielded no bids.
Resource estimates and competing visions
The Bureau of Land Management estimates the coastal plain could contain 4.25 billion to 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, though there is limited information about the actual amount and quality of the reserves.
Leaders of Kaktovik, an Iñupiaq community within the refuge, consider responsible development key to their region’s economic well-being and have welcomed the Trump administration’s efforts to open lands for drilling.
Conservation groups see the refuge as the crown jewel of the country’s refuge system and believe the coastal plain should be off-limits to development. Andy Moderow, senior director of policy at Alaska Wilderness League, said the planned sale “simply runs counter to common sense.”
“Any oil and gas company that is even thinking about buying these leases should know that, if they do, they will be sending a clear message to the American people that no place in Alaska is too sacred to drill in a quest for corporate profits,” Moderow said in a statement urging companies to sit out the sale.
The debate over drilling in the region spans decades, with the issue remaining contentious as the Trump administration continues its expansion of development across the state.