On January 13, Wilderness Watch, the Gwich’in Steering Committee, and our allies filed an amended and supplemental complaint (here and here) in our 2020 lawsuit challenging the Trump administration with violating multiple laws and ignoring impacts to people, caribou, and ways of life when finalizing a leasing program that would hand over the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing and exploitation. Despite the numerous legal violations with the 2020 program, the Trump administration held a lease sale on January 6, 2021, and issued leases to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority just days before leaving office after Trump’s first term. Our coalition filed our initial lawsuit in 2020 but then agreed to pause it during the Biden administration while agencies attempted to fix the program’s profound legal problems. Interior finalized a 2024 plan that offered fewer acres for lease and held a lease sale in January 2025, which drew no bids. The Trump administration readopted the illegal 2020 plan last October and reinstated the unlawful leases that had been issued in 2021. Our January 13 filing updates that litigation to address the Trump administration’s decisions re-adopting that program and unsuspending the unlawful leases. The Gwich’in Nation of Alaska and Canada oppose oil leasing and activities of any kind on the coastal plain, a place they consider sacred because of its importance to the health of the Porcupine caribou herd and their way of life. A recent Alaska Department of Fish and Game report shows marked declines in the Porcupine and Central Arctic caribou herds, an indicator of a region that requires care and protection, not recklessness. Our lawsuit charges the Interior Secretary, Interior Department, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with violating many laws, including the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Wilderness Act, and the Endangered Species Act—all laws that protect our nation’s public lands, waters, wildlife, and people. Law firm Trustees for Alaska represents Wilderness Watch and 12 other clients in the lawsuit: Gwich’in Steering Committee, Alaska Wilderness League, Alaska Wildlife Alliance, Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society-Yukon, Defenders of Wildlife, Environment America, Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, National Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Refuge Association, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Sierra Club, and The Wilderness Society. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one the last great wildernesses left on Earth and the thought of turning it into another poisoned, industrial wasteland should offend everyone. To that end, we are incredibly grateful to thousands of our members and supporters who have taken action over the past decade to defend the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge from oil and gas leasing. As Fran Mauer, Wilderness Watch’s Alaska chapter representative, has said previously, "We will continue to fight to preserve the Arctic Refuge with greater resolve so that it will remain wild forever. If industry and its subservient public officials are allowed to despoil America’s wildest place, nowhere on Earth is safe from their greed." |
