In an effort to hold oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before President Trump leaves office on January 20th, the Bureau of Land Management has issued a call for nominations. The timing is tight. A 30-day call for submissions will end December 17th followed by a 30-day notice prior to final lease sales. With 1.6 million acres of caribou and polar bear habitat at stake, conservative groups around the country, along with the Gwich’in Steering Committee, are suing the Trump administration over violations to the Endangered Species Act, a flawed environmental impact statement, and the foreshortened two-week public comment period (which ended on November 6th) following the initial announcement of the plan.
Despite the last-minute opportunity for lease sales, bidders may be hesitant, given President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory. Biden is adamantly opposed to opening the refuge and has vowed to use the powers at his disposal, be it a congressional bill or an executive decision, to thwart oil and gas lease sales on the Arctic Plane. Couple that with a growing list of major banks unwilling to lend capitol to developers eyeing the Refuge, ferocious legal opposition from numerous environmental and Native challengers, and continued low oil prices, there’s good reason to hope that Big Oil will leave well enough alone.