Preferred alternative would offer minimum acres required, creating smallest footprint of potential surface disturbance and limiting seismic exploration

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Wednesday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released the final Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), which analyzed a lease sale mandated by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (Tax Act) for the nearly 1.6-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The agencies consulted with Alaska Native Tribes and Corporations and engaged with a wide variety of other stakeholders to develop the analysis, using the best available data and science, and identified a preferred alternative in the SEIS that avoids sensitive polar bear dens.

The 2017 Tax Act required the BLM to hold two lease sales in the Coastal Plain within seven years of enactment. During the previous Administration, the first lease sale was held and resulted in nine leases being issued. In January 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 13990, directing the Interior Department to review the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program. As a result of the deficiencies found during that review, in June 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland issued Secretary’s Order 3401, which suspended all activities related to implementing the Leasing Program, pending completion of a comprehensive analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The supplemental analysis released today responds to that direction.  

Of the nine leases sold during the previous Administration’s sale, two were canceled and refunded at the request of the lessees and the remaining seven were cancelled by Secretary Haaland due to the multiple legal deficiencies in the underlying record. There are currently no existing leases in the Coastal Plain.

The range of alternatives presented in the new supplemental analysis addresses identified deficiencies in the 2019 Leasing Program analysis and incorporates and balances the five purposes of the 19.3-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as established in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). The Refuge is located on the traditional homelands of the Iñupiat people of the north and the Gwichʼin people of interior Alaska and Canada.

The preferred alternative in the plan is informed by science, public comments and cooperating agency input, best balances the five purposes of the Refuge, and presents a pathway that honors the Refuge’s original purposes while meeting the requirement under the Tax Act to offer a portion of the Refuge for oil and gas leasing. Under this scenario, the BLM would offer 400,000 acres—the minimum required by the Tax Act—in the northwest portion of the Coastal Plain. The area identified avoids important habitat for polar bear denning areas as well as Porcupine Caribou Herd calving areas. This alternative would have the smallest footprint of potential surface disturbance, including through No Surface Occupancy stipulations, and limits seismic exploration to the areas available for leasing.

In September 2023, the agencies released the draft SEIS, launching a robust public process to gather input from Alaska Native Tribes and Corporations, rural and urban communities, and the public on this analysis. The BLM and FWS hosted in-person public meetings in Utqiagvik, Venetie, Arctic Village, Fort Yukon, Anchorage and Fairbanks, as well as four virtual public meetings. The agencies also held subsistence hearings in Utqiagvik, Venetie, Arctic Village and Fort Yukon, pursuant to Section 810 of ANILCA. The draft SEIS received over 100,000 public comments.

The final SEIS identifies the lands available for lease and the terms and conditions to be applied to leases and authorizations under this program. The next steps in this process will be the issuance of a Record of Decision no less than 30 days after notice of the SEIS is published in the Federal Register, and the offering of a second lease sale. Any permits or authorizations for specific on-the-ground activities on lands obtained through the lease sale would require additional review through the NEPA process. 

The SEIS and associated documents are available at the BLM’s National NEPA Register.

-BLM-

  2017, coastal plain, congress, gas, lease, North slope