JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- The U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday said no bids were submitted for this week's oil and gas lease sale in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- a sale the state has challenged as too restrictive and at odds with a 2017 law aimed at opening the refuge's sweeping coastal plan to exploration and development.
Monday was the deadline for companies to submit bids, the agency said.
Interior Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said the lack of interest by oil companies in pursuing leases in the refuge's coastal plain "reflects what we and they have known all along - there are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling."
"The oil and gas industry is sitting on millions of acres of undeveloped leases elsewhere; we'd suggest that's a prudent place to start, rather than engage further in speculative leasing in one of the most spectacular places in the world," she said in a statement.
But this is unlikely to be the last word. The state this week sued the Interior Department and federal officials over the sale, alleging among other things that the terms were too restrictive. The state also is seeking to have the environmental review underpinning the sale thrown out. Litigation around the first lease sale -- held in the waning days of the Trump administration in early 2021 -- also is still pending.
A 2017 law that President-elect Donald Trump has often highlighted called for offering two lease sales in the refuge's coastal plain by late 2024. Major oil companies sat out the first sale, which saw a state corporation as the main bidder. One of President Joe Biden's first acts as president was to order a review of the leasing program, which ultimately led to the cancelation of seven remaining leases. Smaller companies had previously given up two other leases they'd held from that sale.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Interior Department, has said that it offered for lease as part of the smaller, second sale 400,000 acres (162,000 hectares), the minimum acreage required by the 2017 law. The agency said its proposal avoided important polar bear denning and caribou calving areas and had the smallest footprint of potential surface disturbance.
Leaders in Gwich'in communities near the refuge consider the coastal plain sacred, citing its importance to a caribou herd they rely upon, and oppose drilling there. Leaders of the Iñupiaq community of Kaktovik, which is within the refuge, support drilling and see responsible oil development as critical to the economic wellbeing of communities in the region.
Drilling advocates -- including state political leaders -- are hopeful Trump will pursue drilling in the refuge, seeing a potential to create jobs, generate additional revenue and spur U.S. oil production. But while the Bureau of Land Management has said the coastal plain could contain 4.25 billion to 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, there is limited information about the amount and quality of oil there. And environmentalists contend the lack of interest by oil companies so far should speak volumes.
"They seem to understand that drilling in this remote landscape is too risky, too complicated and just plain wrong," Erik Grafe, an attorney with Earthjustice, said in a statement. "The incoming Trump administration still hasn't gotten the memo and has vowed to keep trying to sell the refuge for oil. We'll continue to use the power of the law to defend this cherished place, as we have for decades."
