e came so close. For more than forty years, the most enduring cause that Don Young advocated for, as Congressman for All Alaska, was oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Before he died in March, Young had seen a president sign legislation authorizing lease sales in ANWR’s coastal plain; he saw a lease sale actually carried out; and he was on the verge of seeing initial exploration toward eventual development.

The first exploration campaign is on hold, pending court action. And Young had one more counterattack in his pocket, a bill to prevent a moratorium on leasing in the refuge: HR 1726, the ANWR Act, which stands for “America Needs Worthwhile Resources.” His last ANWR bill was only the latest, after fourteen previous attempts to open ANWR.

The attempt that succeeded came in December 2017, when an ANWR rider became law with then-President Donald Trump’s signature on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. “We finally got it done,” Young said at the time.

In his fifth decade on Capitol Hill, Young should have known that hardly anything in politics is final.

Established in 1960 and expanded in 1980, ANWR encompasses approximately 19.3 million acres, most of it designated as wilderness area. The major exception from that designation is 1.5 million acres of the coastal plain. Section 1002 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) requires an “analysis of the impacts of oil and gas exploration, development, and production, and to authorize exploratory activity within the Coastal Plain in a manner that avoids significant adverse effects on the fish and wildlife and other resources.”

At the same time, Section 1002 of ANILCA states that “production of oil and gas from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is prohibited and no leasing or other development leading to production of oil and gas from the [Refuge] shall be undertaken until authorized by an act of Congress.”

Congress acted in 2017. Over the next three years, the US Department of Interior published the required environmental impact study, a leasing program was approved, and in January 2021 the lease sale results were released. (The news was sidelined that day by the riot at the US Capitol.)

The results—$14.4 million bid on 437,804 acres covering eleven parcels—might seem impressive, yet the outcome was a disappointment. During the decades that Congress sat on the question, the ANWR debate proceeded along a second prong: a public relations campaign to discourage investment in the refuge. Thus, when ANWR leases became available, not one major oil company placed a bid. None. It was like a birthday party where the guest of honor refused to show up.

The guests who did get a slice of the ANWR cake were a small company named Knik Arm Services and Regenerate Alaska, a subsidiary of Australia’s 88 Energy. Each submitted winning bids for a single tract.

The other nine winning bids came from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), the state-backed investment agency. Federal oil leases are a new asset for AIDEA, but without its involvement the ANWR lease sale would have fizzled completely.

AIDEA chose to finalize seven of its ANWR leases, putting its focus on “the planning and permitting [the organization] would need to ultimately engage in seismic,” as AIDEA Executive Director Alan Weitzner explains. “We had a very robust team that was put together to consult on AIDEA’s planning activity.”

Seismic studies have yet to take place. The ANWR lease sale occurred during the final weeks of the Trump administration. The new administration had a different direction in mind.

Less than six months after AIDEA successfully bid on its leases, in early June 2021, the Biden administration suspended oil and gas leases in ANWR, pending an environmental review.

Alaskan officials were angry, with Governor Mike Dunleavy calling the move an “assault on Alaska’s economy.” The Alaska Legislature passed a non-binding resolution urging the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management to honor the lease sale and proceed with permitting. Weitzner says AIDEA was “extremely disappointed in the Biden Administration’s effort to prevent Alaska from lawfully and responsibly developing its natural resources as agreed and provided for under ANILCA.”

Within days, AIDEA issued a formal response, calling on the US Department of Interior to “address the statutory or regulatory grounds for suspension,” which AIDEA said the department had failed to identify. The response also noted the public support for development by more than twenty Alaska Native organizations and corporations on the North Slope, in particular the Native Village of Kaktovik, the only federally recognized community in the 1002 Area.

Despite the suspension of its leases, AIDEA continued preparatory work, with the AIDEA board authorizing up to $1.5 million on pre-development permitting and planning for its oil and gas. Activities would support a phased, multi-year seismic acquisition program targeted to begin in 2022. AIDEA noted that “establishing the permitting for a 3D seismic data program starting in 2022 [would] support future exploration planning to reduce surface impact and optimize field drilling efforts.” The agency wanted to use data from the assessment to plan the best locations for recovering petroleum.

In August of 2021, AIDEA issued a notice of intent to award SAExploration the contract to perform pre-development permitting and planning, noting that they believed that “the Environmental Impact Statement the Bureau of Land Management prepared for the 1002 Area Lease Sale is comprehensive and appropriately addresses all issues relevant to a leasing phase environmental impacts assessment.”

Five months after Biden’s suspension of oil and gas leases, AIDEA filed a lawsuit claiming the administration violated the terms of AIDEA’s leases. Dunleavy supported the lawsuit, saying that “AIDEA [was] well within its rights to take the President and his staff to court over their unlawful actions.” Attorney General Treg Taylor filed a motion to intervene.

In December 2021, the North Slope Borough and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation also intervened in the lawsuit on AIDEA’s side. North Slope Borough Mayor Harry Brower Jr. said, “Since the 1970s, Alaska has proven that energy development and environmental conservation can proactively co-exist. As Iñupiat, we maintain our traditional values, while our culture continues to evolve and adapt to the changing world around us. We support AIDEA and the Governor for continuing this fight.” Brower and Utqiaġvik Representative Josiah Patkotak jointly authored a column published in the Wall Street Journal imploring the Biden Administration to “Let Alaska Sell American Energy to the World.” The lawsuit gained another intervenor in March 2022, when Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation joined the case. Until AIDEA v. Biden is resolved in US District Court in Anchorage, ANWR exploration is on hold.

The tracts that received attention at the January 2021 lease sale are all on the western part of ANWR’s 1002 Area, adjacent to the Point Thomson unit.

BLM

Much as the Biden administration aggravates Alaskans who’ve dreamed of oil from ANWR since the 1002 Area was established, the president can count on the support of groups that oppose Arctic oil drilling in principle and in practice. For example, Trustees for Alaska filed a motion in March to intervene in the AIDEA lawsuit on behalf of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, representing Native villages on the south side of the refuge. They had sued the Trump administration to halt the lease sale, and while they didn’t win an injunction, that case remains unresolved.

Conscious of the public relations prong, AIDEA has adopted the message that oil and gas development in Alaska is more environmentally sound than anywhere on Earth. “Alaska is a key resource for reliable and responsible oil and gas resources,” says Weitzner. “In all of our media releases we keep highlighting that when we develop responsibly that is the driver for growth in our rural communities, and I don’t understand why we’re sacrificing that in favor of these other parties.”

Weitzner points to sanctions against Russian oil imports as a reason to invest in domestic energy. “It’s perplexing to us that there’s abundant resources for energy available on the North Slope on state and federal land, and the federal government is looking to limit that access while relying on resources from other sanctioned nations,” he says.

That argument echoes one of the last made by Young, as he promoted his yet-unpassed ANWR Act. “Here is the truth: throughout the ANWR leasing process, we conducted extensive environmental review and successfully carried out sales,” the late Congressman said. “[E]verything was done by the book and in accordance with the law. The Biden administration is dead wrong to have imposed a leasing moratorium on ANWR, and their decision looks especially foolish as skyrocketing gas prices continue to impact American families.”

Not even AIDEA is suggesting that oil from ANWR can lower prices at the gasoline pump this month or this year, but what could have been? What if then-President Bill Clinton had not vetoed ANWR drilling in 1996? Or if the US Senate had not blocked it in 2002? Back then, major oil companies might have been able and willing to explore the 1002 Area, and its oil might be filling the Trans Alaska Pipeline System today. And Don Young would’ve been alive to see it.