Public notice error forces delay in federal oil lease sale in Arctic Alaska
- Alaska Beacon
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
By Yereth Rosen
Alaska Beacon
A federal oil and gas lease sale in Alaska that was to have been held in early March has now been postponed for nine days because of public notice mistakes.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Tuesday it has rescheduled its planned lease sale for 5.5 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The sale would have been on March 9, but will now be held on March 18, the BLM said.
A legally required Federal Register notice failed to publish as scheduled last week. The BLM has reissued the notice and said it is now scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
Federal law requires such published notices at least 30 days before lease sales.
This is the first of five NPR-A lease sales mandated under the sweeping budget and tax bill called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The act, passed and signed into law last summer, requires at least five NPR-A lease sales, each offering at least 4 million acres, to be held by 2035.
It is also the first NPR-A lease sale scheduled since 2019, under the first Trump administration, and the first conducted under a new Trump administration management plan that opened long-protected areas of the reserve to leasing.
The Trump plan makes 82% of the 23-million-acre reserve available for leasing, including areas in and around Teshekpuk Lake, the largest North Slope lake and habitat for migratory birds, a caribou herd and other Arctic wildlife. Under an Obama administration plan that was in place until now, about half of the reserve was available for leasing and the Teshekpuk Lake area was among five designated “special areas” protected from development.
A new lawsuit is pending over the Trump administration’s decision to strip protections for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd and its habitat. That lawsuit was filed by an organization in Nuiqsut, the Inupiat village closest to existing NPR-A development. The organization, representing Nuiqsut’s city and tribal governments and for-profit village corporation, had negotiated a conservation agreement that was signed by the Biden administration in late 2024; in December, the Trump administration canceled the agreement.
Exactly what acreage will be auctioned off in the March 19 lease sale was not clear as of Tuesday morning. Details of the sale have not yet been posted on the BLM’s NPR-A website as of then.
• Yereth Rosen came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the Anchorage Times. She has been reporting on Alaska news ever since, covering stories ranging from oil spills to sled-dog races. She has reported for Reuters, for the Alaska Dispatch News, for Arctic Today and for other organizations. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
