Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority v. Biden

The federal district court for the District of Alaska concluded that the September 2023 cancellation of the plaintiff’s oil and gas leases for the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge did not moot the case challenging the Biden administration’s 2021 moratorium on ANWR leasing program activities while supplemental environmental review was conducted. The court also rejected the plaintiff’s motion requesting that it alter or amend its August 2023 decision rejecting the plaintiffs’ challenges to the moratorium. The plaintiff had asked the court to modify the decision to “recognize that the various follow-up matters ancillary to the issuance of the leases … must be addressed by the Federal Defendants with an urgency and timeliness proportional to the statutory deadline” of December 2021 established by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 for issuance of the leases.

The federal district court for the District of Alaska dismissed all claims against federal defendants in an action challenging the Biden administration’s temporary moratorium on the implementation of an oil and gas leasing program on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (Tax Act) included provisions amending the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act to allow oil and gas development on the Coastal Plain, directing that at least two lease sales be conducted, and setting deadlines of December 2021 and December 2024 for those sales. The court concluded that the Tax Act only required that post-lease sale components of the oil and gas development program be completed “within a reasonable period of time,” not by a date certain. The court also concluded that the President and the agency defendants acted within their authorities under the Tax Act and other statutes. The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ contentions that the moratorium violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The court found, among other things, that the defendants provided a reasoned explanation for the change in their position as to the sufficiency of the NEPA review for the leasing program, which was initially conducted during the Trump administration. The court noted that the environmental impact statement for the program failed to consider greenhouse gas emissions estimates resulting from foreign oil consumption, which the Ninth Circuit indicated was required in a December 2020 <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/center-for-biological-diversity-v-zinke-3/">decision</a>. The court found that the reasons for the moratorium were “tethered to a concern about legality and judicial review and not to some unrelated concern, such as a political motivation or desire to address climate change,” even if those motivations also were present.

Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA)—which was the successful bidder for the majority of leases sold in the January 2021 oil and gas lease sale on the Coastal Plain of Alaska—filed a lawsuit in federal court in Alaska seeking to compel the Biden administration to “carry out its congressionally prescribed duties to facilitate development of the Coastal Plain’s oil and gas resources.” AIDEA asserted that President Biden’s Executive Order 13990, “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science To Tackle the Climate Crisis,” which ordered a moratorium on implementation of the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program, was ultra vires and that the U.S. Department of the Interior’s issuance and implementation of the moratorium violated the Administrative Procedure Act, Alaska National Interests Land Conservation Act, and Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which directed the Secretary of the Interior to conduct lease sales.