Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,
The U.S. Department of Justice said July 7 the Biden administration’s oil and gas leasing restrictions in northern Alaska’s Arctic region violated federal law and asked the court to dismiss lawsuits by the state and its industrial development and export authority challenging the regulations.
The lawsuits were filed in 2025 over the Biden administration’s 2024 restrictions on oil and gas lease auctions in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Alaska argued that the administration essentially sabotaged bidding with its restrictions on surface use and occupancy, which made “any development economically and practically impossible.”
“The Biden era Alaska oil and gas leasing program violated the law and improperly limited Alaska’s energy potential with unreasonable regulation,” U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a July 7 press release.
“This settlement supports the Trump administration’s commitment to secure American energy independence and our national security for generations to come,” he added.
Congress set aside 1.5 million acres along the Alaska coast in 1980 for potential oil and gas development, and in 2017 instructed a federal agency to develop the resources on the land. A
