Arctic Refuge Drilling Fails Again — Why Congress Must Repeal the Leasing Mandate

On Friday, June 5, the Trump administration held its third oil and gas lease sale on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. For the third time, the results told the same story: no major oil company bid and the financial promise used to justify drilling in one of America’s last great wild places remained unfounded.

Caribou on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge (Photo credit: Pam Miller)

Nine bids came in and just two entities placed them (AIDEA and Hex Energy). Total revenue was only $3,741,528 — less than 0.4% of the nearly $1 billion Congress claimed Arctic Refuge drilling would generate to offset the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

After three tries, across three lease sales, the cumulative return still hasn’t even reached 1% of what was promised. Arctic Refuge oil

What We Did to Get Here

This moment didn’t happen in a vacuum. It is the result of years of sustained, coordinated advocacy — from Gwich’in Nation leaders, from conservationists, from faith communities, from everyday people across the country.

In the lead-up to Friday’s sale, our coalition mobilized on every front:

More than 335,000 public comments were submitted from 22 different groups, directed at the administration, Congress, and the corporations that were being asked to participate in this sale.

126 national organizations signed on to a letter opposing the lease sale. So did 12 conservation and sportsmen’s organization CEOs, members of Congress, and faith and business leaders through the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.

The Gwich’in Steering Committee wrote directly to oil and gas CEOs requesting a meeting to hear directly from people whose homeland, whose food sovereignty, and whose cultural survival are at stake.

Community hearings in Portland, Seattle, Fairbanks, and Houston gave voice to the thousands of people who understand that the Arctic Refuge coastal plain — what the Gwich’in call the Sacred Place Where Life Begins — is not a line item in a budget reconciliation bill. It is a living landscape. It is the calving ground of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. It belongs to all of us, and most urgently, to the people who have called it home for thousands of years.

Op-eds ran in the Anchorage Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Columbian. The film The Arctic: Our Last Great Wilderness screened in Leavenworth, Washington, days before the sale. Members of Congress — including Sens. Markey and Merkley and Reps. Huffman and Vasquez — spoke out publicly and forcefully in statements. Others like Rep. Vasquez and Sen. Heinrich showed up powerfully on social media.

Why The Results Matter

The financial argument for drilling in the Arctic Refuge has now failed three consecutive times. The world’s largest banks — Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo — walked away from financing Arctic Refuge drilling years ago. Major insurers declined to underwrite it. Oil companies with the technical and financial capacity to operate in one of the world’s most demanding environments looked at the cost structures, the accelerating permafrost instability, and the long-term demand outlook and passed.

The only two bidders who showed up were a state development authority and a little-known company placing a handful of bids.

As AWL Executive Director Kristen Miller put it in our statement:

Economic gain was a false justification to permanently sell off the most ecologically and culturally significant landscapes in the United States. The American people don’t want this, the oil industry doesn’t want this, and our public lands deserve so much better.

But We Can’t Stop Here

Friday’s sale was a market failure and a moral embarrassment, but the legal mandate that required it to happen is still on the books. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included a provision requiring the administration to hold lease sales in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain, regardless of market demand, taxpayer return, or the clear and consistent opposition of the Gwich’in Nation.

That means another sale could happen. And another after that.

That is why passing the Arctic Refuge Protection Act matters so much. Repealing the leasing mandate is the only way to ensure that these results are the last time we have to fight this fight.

Permanent protection for the coastal plain is what the Gwich’in Nation has asked for, what the ecological science demands, and what the market has now made undeniably clear.

What Comes Next

We need a Congress willing to repeal the leasing mandate. We need an administration committed to honoring the Gwich’in Nation’s rights and the public’s clear preference for protection over drilling. And we need to keep the pressure on, because the next opportunity to make permanent change will come, and we will be ready.