Despite the federal government shutdown, the Trump administration is proceeding with new oil leasing on Alaska’s North Slope.
The U.S. Bureau of Land management said Tuesday it will be accepting nominations for areas to auction in an upcoming oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The call for nominations is the first step in the leasing process.
The pending lease sale is in accordance with the sweeping budget bill, signed by President Donald Trump on July 5, that he and his supporters call “The One Big Beautiful Bill.” The bill requires the BLM to hold at least five lease sales, each offering at least 4 million acres, over the next 10 years.
“Congress directed a program of expeditious leasing and development in the NPR-A to support America’s energy independence, and that is more important today than ever,” Kevin Pendergast, Alaska state director for the BLM, in a statement. “This lease sale gets us back on track toward further exploration and development in the reserve, as Congress envisioned.”
The upcoming lease sale is intended to be under new Trump-era rules that remove protections enacted by the Biden administration, the Obama administration and earlier administrations, dating back to former President Ronald Reagan’s term.
Under the Trump rules, more than 18.5 million of the reserve’s 23 million acres are designated as available for leasing. That includes the ecologically sensitive Teshekpuk Lake, the largest lake on the North Slope, which is important habitat for migratory birds and which is adjacent to the calving grounds for the Teshekpuk caribou herd.
No lease sales have been held since the 2019 auction held under the first Trump administration. After that administration shifted its focus to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Two lease sales were held in the refuge, in January 2021 and January 2025. The first of those sales drew few bids, none of them from major oil companies, and the 2025 sale drew no bids.
Environmentalists criticised the move toward a sale during a government shutdown.
“The Trump administration’s outrageous announcement shows a sad truth in our country today: The government is open for resource extraction corporations and closed for the people,” Andy Moderow, senior director of policy at Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement.
Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity, echoed that sentiment in a different statement.
“The Trump government clearly isn’t shut down for the oil industry, with millions upon millions of Alaska’s western Arctic recklessly open for exploitation and desecration,” he said. “We can’t let this administration destroy key habitat for cherished wildlife like caribou, polar bears and millions of migratory birds for nothing more than stuffing oil barons’ pockets.”
Unlike the Arctic refuge, which is on the eastern side of the North Slope, the National Petroleum Reserve on the western side of the North Slope has drawn industry interest. The reserve is underlain by an oil-rich formation called Nanushuk that has yielded significant discoveries on both federal and state land.
Some of those discoveries have resulted in producing oil fields, and more are expected. ConocoPhillips’ huge Willow project, which the company has said will produce up to 180,000 barrels a day from reserves totaling about 600 million barrels, is located in the reserve and is set to become the North Slope’s westernmost producing oil field.
Source: Alaska Beacon