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AIDEA has filed another ANWR lawsuit
Agency argues Interior's Sept. 6 cancellation of AIDEA's coastal plain oil and gas leases was illegal for a number of reasons Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
On Oct. 18 the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority filed a lawsuit in the federal District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the Department of the Interior's recent cancellation of AIDEA's oil and gas leases on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Interior cancelled the leases on Sept. 6, saying that the lease sale under which the leases had been issued had been illegal because of a deficient environmental impact statement for the sale.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in 2017, mandated the conducting of two ANWR coastal plain leases sales. The Bureau of Land Management conducted the first of these lease sales in January 2021, with AIDEA, Knik Arm Services LLC and Regenerate Alaska purchasing leases in the sale. However, in 2021 the incoming Biden administration ruled that the lease sale EIS was deficient. BLM then placed a moratorium on the permitting of ANWR lease related activities until the EIS had been reworked. Knik Arm Services and Regenerate Alaska subsequently relinquished their leases.
A draft supplementary environmental impact statement, published on Sept. 6 found that the 2021 lease sale in which AIDEA purchased its leases "was seriously flawed and based on a number of fundamental legal deficiencies." Interior immediately cancelled AIDEA's leases.
AIDEA's case AIDEA is arguing that the lease cancellation is illegal, in that the granting of ANWR leases had been mandated by Congress under the terms of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act -- by frustrating a directive in this act, Interior's cancellation of the leases had been "arbitrary and capricious, AIDEA wrote in its court filing. Also the operational rules that Interior has argued are deficient in the original EIS do not implicate the validity of AIDEA's leases -- Interior has failed to provide AIDEA with the opportunity to keep its leases by complying with any corrected operational rules, AIDEA argues. Interior's unilateral decision to cancel the leases violated AIDEA's constitutional and due process rights. Given that AIDEA's leases "are known to contain valuable deposits of oil and gas," Interior needed to obtain a court order authorizing the lease termination, AIDEA wrote. And Interior's lease cancellation decision resulted from the agency's "real goal of never allowing drilling in the Coastal Plain," the agency argued.
AIDEA said that, based on a previous Supreme Court ruling, the phrase "known to contain valuable deposits" of a leasable substance only requires proof that the substance exists in adjacent lands, and that geological and other conditions show that it is reasonable to believe that the substance also exists in economically viable quantities in the leased lands.
Significant expenses incurred AIDEA also said that it had incurred significant expenses to further its mission of enabling job opportunities and economic growth in Alaska by accessing and developing the state's natural resources.
"Cancellation of the lease agreements eliminates AIDEA's property rights in exploring and developing these leases and prevents all of the expected benefits that would have come from developing an oil and gas program on these lands, seriously harming AIDEA," AIDEA wrote.
In early August the federal District Court in Alaska rejected a previous appeal by AIDEA against an Interior imposed temporary moratorium on lease activities on the coastal plain. However, following the cancellation of the leases, both the court and AIDEA have agreed that that this earlier court case is now moot.
Native organizations and others support AIDEA The Voice of the Arctic Inupiat has expressed its annoyance at the lease cancellation, saying that it was blindsided, having learned about the decision through press reports rather than through direct communication. The decision was made without any consultation with Alaska Native communities, the Native organization said.
"This is no way to treat Alaska Native communities," said Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat. "This administration has yet to live up to its repeated promises to listen to and work with indigenous communities who overwhelmingly support resource development projects in our region. Rather than producing energy under robust American environmental protections on the North Slope, the Biden administration chooses instead to ease sanctions in Venezuela's oil sector, making concessions to foreign dictators and countries with shoddy environmental track records to meet America's energy needs."
"Our communities and elected officials on the North Slope have been steadfast in our support of responsible development on our ancestral homelands," said North Slope Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak. "They are a critical component of our region's economy and the long-term health of our Inupiaq culture. Yet the federal government's inconsistent policy making continues to complicate our economic security, ability to practice subsistence traditions, and expand modern infrastructure and amenities to our communities, many of which are only one generation removed from third-world conditions unrecognizable to the Lower 48."
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy strongly supports AIDEA's position, as does Alaska's Congressional delegation.
Opposition to ANWR development However, the Gwich'in Native people of northern Alaska and Canada oppose ANWR oil and gas development. The Gwich'in worry about potential impacts on the Porcupine caribou herd that calves on the coastal plain and is a primary subsistence food source for the Gwich'in.
And environmental organizations have consistently fought the possibility of oil and gas development in ANWR, arguing that this development would have unacceptable environmental impacts.
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