(Reuters) – A federal judge in Alaska ruled that former President Joe Biden’s administration lacked the authority to cancel oil and gas leases that had been issued for development within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage on Tuesday sided with a state-owned economic development public corporation in Alaska in finding that the U.S. Department of the Interior needed a court order in order to cancel its leases.
The decision could bolster Republican President Donald Trump’s administration efforts to reopen the 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of the refuge for oil and gas leasing. Trump on his first day back in office on January 20 signed an executive order that sought to rescind the Biden-era lease cancellations.
In the final days of Trump’s first term and a week before Biden, a Democrat, took office, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority had secured leases with initial terms of 10 years for seven tracts of land in ANWR covering 365,775 acres.
Biden had vowed to protect the refuge from drilling, and his administration in September 2023 canceled the authority’s leases for oil and gas development in ANWR, a 19-million-acre sanctuary for species including polar bears and Porcupine caribou.
The authority in a lawsuit filed in October 2023 argued that the Biden administration’s decision violated a clear Congressional mandate in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted in Trump’s first term that opened the Arctic up to drilling.
Gleason, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, agreed, saying the Interior Department “canceled AIDEA’s leases without following the congressionally-mandated procedure for doing so.”
The judge sent the matter back to the Interior Department, now under Trump, for further action.
“The Department of the Interior is moving quickly to reinstate the wrongfully terminated leases, consistent with President Trump’s order to unleash Alaska’s energy resources and further ensure American energy dominance,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.
The authority’s counsel did not respond to a request for comment. Its case had been supported by the Republican-led state’s government. Cori Mills, Alaska’s deputy attorney general, in a statement hailed the ruling as “definitely a victory.”
“The state looks forward to working with the current federal administration on fully realizing the vast potential of ANWR to grow Alaska’s economy and help America’s energy independence,” Mills said.
U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last week announced steps to reopen the Coastal Plain of the refuge for oil and gas leasing.
A January 8 lease auction that had been mandated by Congress held under the Biden administration’s Interior Department received no bids from energy companies.
The case is Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority v. U.S. Department of the Interior, No. 3:24-cv-00051.
For Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority: Brian Gerd of Birch Horton Bittner & Cherot
For the United States: Paul Turcke of the U.S. Department of Justice
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston
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