9 U.S. Home candidates put together to talk at a Could 12 discussion board hosted by Alaska business teams. Candidates are seated in alphabetical order: Nick Begich, former state Rep. John Coghill, Anchorage Meeting member Christopher Fixed, Al Gross, Jeff Lowenfels, former Gov. Sarah Palin, former state Rep. Mary Peltola, state Sen. Josh Revak and former Assistant Inside Secretary Tara Sweeney. (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Tales are posted on the statewide information web page. Ship information ideas, questions, and feedback to information@alaskapublic.org. Observe Alaska Public Media on Fb and on Twitter @AKPublicNews. And subscribe to the Alaska Information Nightly podcast.
Monday on Alaska Information Nightly:
A lacking seven-year-old from Kodiak is discovered useless a couple of miles from his dwelling. Additionally, liberal-leaning Alaska voters fear about splitting the vote in a crowded particular main to fill Don Younger’s seat. And deep snowpack within the Inside final winter led a rise in wildlife deaths.
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Reviews tonight from:
Sabine Poux in Kenai Kirsten Dobroth in Kodiak Yvonne Krumrey in Juneau Liz Ruskin in Anchorage Dan Bross in Fairbanks Tim Ellis in Delta Junction Anna Rose MacArthur in Bethel Katharine Rose in Sitka and Sage Smiley in Wrangell
Alaska Information Nightly is hosted by Casey Grove, with producing and audio engineering from Toben Shelby and Katie Anastas.
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks from the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., November 26, 2024.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
The U.S. state of Alaska has sued the Biden administration for what it calls violations of a Congressional directive to allow oil and gas development in a portion of the federal Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Monday’s lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Alaska challenges the federal government’s December 2024 decision to offer oil and gas drilling leases in an area known as the coastal plain with restrictions.
The lawsuit said curbs on surface use and occupancy make it “impossible or impracticable to develop” 400,000 acres (162,000 hectares) of land the U.S. Interior Department plans to auction this month to oil and gas drillers.
The limits would severely limit future oil exploration and drilling in the refuge, it added.
“Interior’s continued and irrational opposition under the Biden administration to responsible energy development in the Arctic continues America on a path of energy dependence instead of utilizing the vast resources we have available,” Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy said in a statement.
Alaska wants the court to set aside the December decision and prohibit the department from issuing leases at the auction.
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The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Bureau of Land Management declined to comment.
When combined with the department’s cancellation of leases granted during the waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency, Alaska says it will receive just a fraction of the $1.1 billion the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would get in direct lease-related revenues from energy development in the area.
The lawsuit is Alaska’s latest legal response to the Biden administration’s efforts to protect the 19.6-million-acre (8-million-hectare) ANWR for species such as polar bears and caribou.
An October 2023 lawsuit by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority contested the administration’s decision to cancel the seven leases it held. Another state lawsuit in July 2024 sought to recover revenue lost as a result.
Drilling in the ANWR, the largest national wildlife refuge, was off-limits for decades and the subject of fierce political fights between environmentalists and Alaska’s political leaders, who have long supported development in the coastal plain.
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In 2017, Alaska lawmakers secured that opportunity through a provision in a Trump-backed tax cut bill passed by Congress. In the final days of Trump’s administration, it issued nine 10-year leases for drilling in ANWR.
Under Biden, two lease winners withdrew from their holdings in 2022. In September, the interior department canceled the seven issued to the state industrial development body.
Sea ice in the Beaufort Sea, with the 1002 Area of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain, and the Brooks Range mountains, in the background to the south. (USFWS Photo)
Attorneys for the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit Monday to try to invalidate a federal lease sale for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The lawsuit says the Biden administration is offering so little land for lease and has put so many restrictions on it that the lease sale doesn’t comply with the law.
So the state, a stalwart supporter of drilling in the refuge, is asking a judge not to let the federal government issue leases to oil companies. The role reversal is the latest wrinkle in a long saga over what to do with the coastal plain of the refuge, in the northeast corner of Alaska.
After decades of hot debate in Congress, Sen. Lisa Murkowski championed a provision in a 2017 tax law mandating two lease sales, of at least 400,000 acres each, on the coastal plain of the refuge.
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The first was held in 2021, in the final days of the Trump administration. As a measure of industry interest, it was a dud. None of the big oil companies offered a bid. Two private firms won leases but then relinquished them. The main bidder was the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.
In 2023, the Biden administration cancelled the leases, saying the process was flawed.
The state, citing an earlier congressional estimate, said it was in line to get more than $1 billion in lease revenues, plus royalty payments and the indirect economic benefits that come with more industrial activity.
Bids for the second sale were due Monday, and they’re scheduled to be unsealed Friday. The state lawsuit notes that this time, the government made only a third of the coastal plain available for bidding.
“Worse,” the legal complaint says, “it makes the lands available for lease impossible or impracticable to develop by significantly restricting surface use and occupancy. In essence, the [lease sale conditions] are designed to inhibit and deter, rather than promote, development of the Coastal Plain’s mineral resources.”
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The Biden administration says its restrictions are the best way to balance all of the laws it has to follow. Before the 2017 law ordering lease sales, Congress set other goals for the Arctic Refuge, including conserving birds and wildlife, and protecting subsistence hunting and fishing opportunities.
If the lawsuit succeeds the Trump administration could get a do-over to offer more land for lease and under terms that would facilitate drilling.
Alaska Airlines (AS) announced a significant expansion of its summer 2025 network, introducing the first-ever nonstop flights connecting Anchorage to Detroit and Sacramento while reinstating service between Fairbanks and Portland.
