The sale is part of Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” fossil fuel agenda and comes on the heels of DOI’s reopening last October of 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leases. The move reversed the Biden administration’s 2023 cancellation of all existing oil and gas leases in the ANWR area and a drilling ban across 13 million acres of the adjacent National Petroleum Reserve.
The Trump administration also recently transferred nearly 1.4 million acres of public lands along the Dalton Utility Corridor from the BLM to the state of Alaska, a move that one environmentalist warned would “only help polluting corporations turn Alaska into an industrial wasteland…in order to expand the portfolios of mining, oil and gas companies.”
The ANWR is home to indigenous people, primarily the North Slope Inupiat and Gwich’in. The former generally support fossil fuel development, arguing that it provides jobs and revenues and promotes self-determination, while the latter oppose large-scale drilling.
The Gwich’in tribe calls the area “the sacred place where life begins” and they depend on its rich biodiversity – especially its forests. A herd of ibex numbering 200,000– For their survival. The ANWR is home to about 270 animal species, including musk oxen, arctic foxes, snow geese and other migratory birds, and all of the world’s remaining Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears.
While the American Petroleum Institute, the nation’s leading fossil fuel lobbying group, welcomed the lease sale on Friday, calling Alaskan oil and gas “key to America’s energy security,” Christine Moreland, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, said, Save “Some places are too important to be sacrificed.”
In a call with reporters Thursday, Moreland said, “Tomorrow’s lease sale is about much more than economics or development. It’s about whether our voices, our culture, our way of life matter.”
Conservationists have also denounced the lease sale, of which Earthjustice is part of a coalition Difficult DOI Policy in Federal Court –Named “Another attempt to sell off our public lands to boost corporate profits, while Indigenous communities, wildlife and future generations bear the risks.”
US Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) He said Friday on
In a video Posted Thursday on social media, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) called ANWR “the crown jewel of our U.S. national wildlife system.”
“Tomorrow, the Trump administration will try to lease the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. So I have a message for all the big oil companies out there,” the senator said. “I understand you have a job to do. This job never involves digging in U.S. national parks or national wildlife refuges. Do not bid.”
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) also posted a video addressing the lease sale and arguing that Big Oil — part of an industry that spent nearly $450 million during the 2024 election cycle on campaign donations, lobbying, and other efforts to elect Trump and Republicans who didn’t vote — are “the ones calling the shots.”
Alaska Wilderness Association He said On the
The group added: “The North Pole is not for sale, never was, and never will be.” “Hands off the North Pole.”
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