Bid opening for oil lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge delayed by one day

Bids for oil exploration rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain will be opened on Jan. 10, a day later than originally scheduled, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has said.

The one-day delay is because President Joe Biden has ordered federal offices to be closed on Jan. 9 in honor of the late President Jimmy Carter, the BLM said Tuesday. The 37th president died on Sunday at the age of 100.

All other aspects of the lease sale remain the same, including a requirement that sealed bids be submitted by Jan. 6, the BLM said.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lease sale was mandated in federal tax legislation passed in 2017. That bill ordered the Department of the Interior to hold two lease sales in the refuge’s coastal plain, each offering at least 400,000 acres.

The first lease sale was held on Jan. 6, 2021, one of the last days of the prior Trump administration. That sale drew no bids from major oil companies. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state development agency, was the main bidder. No exploration has resulted from that lease sale.

[AIDEA approves up to $20 million for potential Arctic refuge oil lease bids]

The upcoming lease sale includes a series of restrictions and environmental protections imposed by the Biden administration. Those restrictions have drawn criticism from development advocates.

Debate over oil development in the refuge’s coastal plain has raged for decades.

Environmentalists and some Indigenous groups in Alaska and nearby parts of northwestern Canada have staunchly opposed it because the area targeted for development — a relatively narrow strip of land between the Arctic Ocean and the mountains of the Brooks Range — is the calving ground for the Porcupine Caribou Herd. The herd is important to the culture of the Gwich’in Athabascan people of northeastern Alaska and northwestern Canada.

Former President Carter, who guided the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 that expanded the Arctic refuge, was also a staunch opponent of oil development there.

[Alaska leaders praise Jimmy Carter, while some also underscore political differences]

Alaska politicians and several Inupiat organizations on the North Slope, however, have long campaigned to open the area to oil development because of the potential economic benefits. Inupiat-owned corporations own land and mineral rights within the refuge boundaries and could earn royalties if oil is produced there.

President-elect Donald Trump is also pushing for oil drilling in the refuge coastal plain. He has claimed, falsely, that the area could hold more oil than Saudi Arabia.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.