Environmental groups sue to stop oil and gas lease sale in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve

(CN) — A pair of environmental groups sued the Trump administration Tuesday in an attempt to stop the leasing of roughly 5.5 million acres of pristine land in Alaska for oil and gas drilling.

“The Trump administration is inviting big oil companies to go wild and wreak havoc in one of the last, large, intact natural areas on the planet,” said Rebecca Noblin, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the two groups that filed the lawsuit. “We’ll fight these unlawful actions and work to ensure that the polar bears, caribou, and migratory birds who call the Western Arctic home can survive and thrive into the future.”

The proposed “lease sale” concerns land in the National Petroleum Reserve, which, at nearly 37,000 square miles, is the largest piece of undisturbed public land in the U.S. Created in 1923 by President Warren G. Harding, it is believed to contain “896 million barrels of conventional, undiscovered oil,” according to a 2008 estimate by the U.S. Geological Survey. According to the Bureau of Land Management, about 1.6 million acres in the reserve are already under lease, including one large project expected to start producing oil in 2029.

Last week, the bureau announced it would soon hold a “landmark oil and gas lease sale” of more than 600 tracts.

“The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska plays a vital role in advancing America’s energy independence, and Congress has repeatedly made clear their intent for timely leasing and responsible development in the region,” said acting Bureau of Land Management Director Bill Groffy in a statement last week. “This lease sale — the first in the reserve since 2019 — marks another exciting milestone as we work to unlock the full potential of this area.”

The announced sale, which is currently scheduled to start next month, is the first of five mandated by the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress last year. The sale is only the latest in a number of Trump administration moves aimed at opening up the Alaska wilderness to drilling and mining.

Despite its name, the National Petroleum Reserve is more than just a giant oil field. It is considered by many to be an important habitat for migratory birds — it has been referred to as “Heathrow at the top of the world” — as well as caribou and polar bears, listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

“This senseless push to auction off millions of acres of public land in the Arctic, including some of the region’s most sensitive and ecologically significant lands that have been protected for decades, will cause lasting harm to these irreplaceable lands, to the wildlife and people who depend on them, and to the climate,” said attorney Jeremy Lieb of Earthjustice, the nonprofit law firm representing the plaintiffs, in a written statement. “The Trump administration is illegally allowing this massive lease sale to move forward without adequately studying the harms it would cause to the Western Arctic’s ecosystems and the climate, and without considering less-damaging alternatives.”

Follow @hillelaron