League of Conservation Voters v. Trump

The federal district court for the District of Alaska denied environmental organizations’ motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) to reinstate the district court’s 2019 judgment determining that President Trump lacked authority to revoke President Obama’s withdrawals of certain areas on the outer continental shelf (OCS) from future oil and gas leasing. After President Biden issued an executive order in 2021 rescinding President Trump’s revocation, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the case was moot and vacated the district court’s judgment. The environmental organizations filed their Rule 60(b)(6) motion after President Trump issued Executive Order 14148 on January 20, 2025 rescinding the Biden executive order as well as President Biden’s additional withdrawals of OCS areas from oil and gas leasing. The district court agreed with defendant-intervenors American Petroleum Institute and the State of Alaska that the Ninth Circuit’s mandate did not permit the court to reinstate its 2019 judgment. The district court concluded that because the effect of possible future action had been addressed before the Ninth Circuit in briefing on the mootness question, the Ninth Circuit had “held by necessary implication that an exception to mootness premised on a recurrence of the allegedly unlawful conduct did not apply.” The district court stated that the plaintiffs could seek relief by filing a new complaint in this action or by adding the issue of Executive Order 14148’s impact on the 2017 withdrawal revocation to a separate <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/northern-alaska-environmental-center-v-trump/">pending</a> lawsuit challenging the revocation of President Biden’s additional withdrawals.

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Environmental organizations—a number of which also were plaintiffs in a <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/northern-alaska-environmental-center-v-trump/">new lawsuit</a>—filed a motion in a lawsuit filed in 2017 to challenge President Trump’s revocation of President Obama’s withdrawals of certain Outer Continental Shelf areas in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans from oil and gas leasing. The organizations asked the federal district court for the District of Alaska to reinstate its order and judgment holding that the 2017 revocations exceeded President Trump’s authority under OCSLA. The Ninth Circuit in 2021 vacated the district court’s judgment, finding that the appeals were moot after President Biden rescinded President Trump’s revocation and directing the district court to dismiss the organizations’ case without prejudice. In their motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6), the organizations argued that the “extraordinary circumstance” of President Trump’s reinstatement of his prior revocation of President Obama’s withdrawals warranted relief from the dismissal of the case.

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On March 29, 2019, the federal district court for the District of Alaska vacated the portion of a 2017 executive order issued by President Trump that revoked President Obama’s prior withdrawals of certain areas of the Outer Continental Shelf in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans from oil and gas leasing. The court held that President Trump’s revocation of the withdrawals exceeded presidential authority granted by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). The court said that the text of Section 12(a) of the OCSLA—which provides that the president “may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf”—did not expressly grant the power to revoke prior withdrawals. Although the court said the inclusion of “from time to time” in Section 12(a) rendered the provision ambiguous, the court concluded that the structure, legislative history, and purposes of the OCSLA indicated that Congress intended to authorize the president only to withdraw lands from leasing. The court indicated that instances of Congress deciding not to challenge “the small number of prior revocations” fell “far short of the high bar required to constitute acquiescence” to the president’s authority to revoke withdrawals, and that there was “[t]oo little information” about Congress’s inaction with respect to Section 12(a) to override the court’s interpretation.

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The federal district court for the District of Alaska denied motions to dismiss an action challenging President Trump’s executive order reversing President Obama’s withdrawals of coastal areas in the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas from oil and gas leasing. The court said the doctrine of sovereign immunity did not apply because the plaintiffs asserted that President Trump acted beyond the powers delegated to him by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and under the Constitution. The court also concluded that plaintiffs did not need express congressional authorization to bring their claims under the OCSLA and the Constitution’s Property Clause and that restrictions on the declaratory relief that courts could issue against the president did not warrant dismissal of the entire action. In addition, the court found that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged standing and that OCSLA did not require that the action be brought in the D.C. Circuit.

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Federal defendants and the American Petroleum Institute (API) moved to dismiss an action in Alaska federal court challenging President Trump’s authority to issue the executive order of April 28, 2017 on “Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy” that reversed President Obama’s withdrawal of lands in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans from future oil and gas leasing. The federal defendants argued that the plaintiffs had not identified a private right of action or waiver of sovereign immunity and that separation of powers principles barred the relief sought. The federal defendants also said the plaintiffs’ claims were unripe and that the plaintiffs lacked standing. API adopted and incorporated by reference the federal defendants’ arguments and also argued that the judicial review was not yet available under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and would not in any event be available in the District of Alaska.