Alaska and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) entered into a settlement with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and other federal defendants (together BLM) to resolve Alaska’s and AIDEA’s lawsuits challenging the Biden administration’s 2024 supplemental environmental impact statement and record of decision (ROD) governing oil and gas leasing on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Alaska and AIDEA alleged that the plan approved in 2024 was unlawful, including because it violated Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (Tax Act) requirements by failing to make available a minimum of two Coastal Plain lease sales by December 2024, with a minimum of 400,000 acres offered for lease at each sale. In addition, Alaska and AIDEA alleged that BLM erroneously interpreted the Tax Act’s provision authorizing production and support facilities on up to 2,000 surface acres. In the settlement agreement, BLM agreed that the 2024 ROD violated the Tax Act “by preventing meaningful leasing, exploration, and development of oil and gas on the Coastal Plan, as Congress mandated,” in at least four ways that were set forth in settlement agreement. BLM agreed not to issue a new ROD with any of those deficiencies, absent a change in law. In exchange, Alaska and AIDEA agreed to dismiss their claims without prejudice.

Challenge to the Biden administration’s December 2024 decision authorizing oil and gas leasing on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Alaska v. U.S. Department of the Interior

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Challenges to Biden Administration’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Oil and Gas Leasing Program Dismissed After Settlement in Which BLM Agreed that 2017 Tax Act Required More Expansive Development

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

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Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

A tax advantage is a fiscal incentive where the government reduces or exempts selected activities, goods or actors from taxes.

A ban is a legal action that prevents the sale or supply of a product or service, or that recalls a product from the market. Examples are bans on SF6, greenwashing, fossil fuel advertisement or single-use plastics.

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

Fossil gas, commonly known as natural gas, is a fossil fuel consisting chiefly of methane with smaller amounts of other hydrocarbons and trace gases, found in underground deposits.

Any compulsory, unrequited payment to the government levied on corporations or individuals. This can be for environmental reasons, such as introducing a Carbon tax to set a price that emitters must pay for the greenhouse gases they emit.

Activities that involve planning, designing and building infrastructure, residential, and commercial structures.

This sector involves the wholesale and retail selling of goods.

This sector involves activities to move goods and people, alongside the storage of products.

Challenges to Biden Administration’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Oil and Gas Leasing Program Dismissed After Settlement in Which BLM Agreed that 2017 Tax Act Required More Expansive Development

Policy instrument

Fossil fuel

Economic sector

Finance