Haaland cancels state’s ANWR leases, ignoring federal law passed by Congress

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has cancelled seven oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, held by a state of Alaska agency. If upheld, the action would leave no leases remaining in the refuge.

Haaland’s decision was announced Wednesday, Sept. 6. “With today’s action, no one will have rights to drill in one of the most sensitive landscapes on Earth,” Haaland said in a news conference Wednesday. “Climate change is the crisis of our lifetime. And we cannot ignore the disproportionate impacts being felt in the Arctic.

The legality of Haaland’s action will be tested in court. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, the state development corporation that owns seven federal leases in ANWR cancelled by Haaland, said it will sue.

Interior’s action leaves AIDEA only one choice, that we have to go to court to protect our rights in the ANWR leases,” said Randy Ruaro, Executive Director.

“In 2020, AIDEA made lawful bids and was legally awarded land leases in the 1002 area of ANWR, an area designated by Congress for responsible oil production,” Ruaro said. “This action was laid out in the (federal) Tax cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by the President in 2017,” he said.

The state will argue that the Interior Department doesn’t have the authority to flout a federal law passed by Congress.

Haaland also announced new protections on federal land in the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska, west of the North Slope’s major oil fields. Interior officials were careful to say that the new order would not affect ConocoPhillips’ Willow project, now in advanced development planning.

“The proposed rule would not impact valid existing rights,” Laura Daniel-Davis, principal deputy assistant Interior secretary for Land and Minerals Management, told reporters. While the announcement left work on Willow free to proceed the new restrictions will serve to limit continued exploration in the area, possibly foreclosing new Willow discoveries.

Alaska’s U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola was not comforted by that. “I am deeply frustrated by the reversal of these leases in ANWR. This administration showed that it is capable of listening to Alaskans with the approval of the Willow Project, and it is some of those same Inupiat North Slope communities who are the ones that are most impacted by this decision,” to cancel the leases in ANWR.

Inupiat residents of the North Slope are indirectly affected by the lease cancellation. AIDEA was hoping to get Interior’s permission to do preliminary exploration this winter on its seven leases and had that occurred Kaktovik Inupiat Corp. and Arctic Slope Regional Corp. might have been been able to also explore adjacent lands they own, which have oil potential.

AIDEA’s possession of the only leases in the refuge came about through a lease sale authorized by the federal tax act. No major oil and gas company submitted bids in the sale. Two small independent companies who did submit bids, aside from AIDEA, subsequently withdrew when it became apparent that Interior would delay permits and take other actions to slow exploration.

The lease sale was held in refuge’s coastal plain east of state-owned lands where discoveries have been made. When Congress created ANWR in 1980 it placed most of the refuge in a protected wilderness status but held out 1.5 million acres of coastal plain because of its oil and gas potential.