Interior Department closes off more of National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, but effects on oil development muted

The U.S. Department of Interior reinstated a 2013 land management plan for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR-A in an action announced April 25.

The new plan reduces the amount of acreage opened to exploration by President Donald Trump in 2020, but the action will have little near-term effect on exploration or planned oil and gas development in the 23-million-acre reserve.

Secretary Deb Haaland’s action was widely expected after her January announcement that the Trump 2020 plan was to go on hold and be reviewed.

Trump’s 2020 plan opened about 18 million acres of the 23-million-acre reserve to leasing. The new plan announced Monday removes about 6 million acres and returns the acreage open to exploration to 12 million acres available in the 2013 plan.

Under Trump’s plan, about 80 percent of NPR-A was open to leasing. The new plan, a return to former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s plan, under Present Barack Obama, had about 50 percent of lands in the reserve available.

Despite the greater amount of acreage now off-limits once again, the new action will not have near-term effects because the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has not held new lease sales in NPR-A for several years, even during the Trump administration.

As for long-term effects, much of the acreage opened by Trump in 2020 were under stringent environmental restrictions that were maintained by Trump, some even made strincter. A great deal of attention has been focused on environmentally sensitive coastal lands in the NPR-A, for example, including areas around Teshekpuk Lake, a major migratory waterfowl breeding area.

While the Trump plan opened more coastal area to leasing it left intact existing restrictions on any leasing like bans on surface occupancy for facilities, particularly near Teshekpuk Lake.

Even with companies able to bid for leases these would have made development of any discoveries very difficult from a practical standpoint, according to industry sources knowlegeable with the region.

Also, the April 25 action will not affect development of new oil and gas discoveries in the reserve now under development, such as ConocoPhillips’ Willow project, or two smaller ConocoPhillips producing properties in NPR-A, GMT-2 and GMT-1.

Those are on leases located in areas approved for leasing and development in the 2013 plan and are outside the acreage affected in Interior’s decision this week.

Similarly, exploration projects in the southeast NPR-A where drilling was underway this winter are not affected.

Significantly, Interior’s approval of a new Record of Decision left in place the revised Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, developed by the Trump administration. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management issued a Determination of National Environmental Policy Act Adequacy as part of its action on the Record of Decision which validated the 2020 EIS.s

Additional protective lease stipulations approved the in Trump 2020 plan were also left intact. “Certain more protective lease stipulation and operating procedures for threatened and endangered species were confirmed through consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service,” BLM said in its April 25 statement.

National conservation groups were still critical of Interior’s action, arguing it did not go far enough.“ At a time when we desperately need to end Arctic oil leasing, this just isn’t enough,” said Kristen Monsell of the Denver-based Center for Biological Diversity.

“Addressing the climate emergency means ending new fossil fuel extraction, and we can’t keep going in the opposite direction. Biden officials can and must use their power to help us avoid disastrous climate change and support the transition to a just, renewable economy,” she said.