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Updated complaint resumes litigation to protect the 1.56 million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas leasing, adding new claims challenging Interior’s October 2025 decision to again open the Coastal Plain to leasing.

Updated complaint restarts paused litigation to protect the 1.56 million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas leasing

Federal agencies failed to prevent harm to threatened polar bears when they opened the entire Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing

This letter serves as a 60-day notice on behalf of the three conservation groups of their intent to sue the Bureau of Land Management and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum for violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to ensure that the oil and gas leasing program approved by the Bureau in October 2025 is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of polar bears or result in the destruction or adverse modification of their critical habitat.

In a series of recent moves, the administration is opening most of the vast and precious Arctic ecosystem to drilling.

At the expense of communities and our climate, this massive public lands attack auctions off treasured lands in the nation’s largest wildlife refuge to benefit fossil fuel companies

Earthjustice is defending against multi-pronged attacks, all aimed at maximum drilling.

La administración Biden cancela ofertas ilegales y abre nuevos procesos que podrían preservar las preciadas tierras árticas en Alaska, pero se necesita más para abordar la mayor amenaza climática: más perforaciones en los arrendamientos de petróleo y gas existentes en el Ártico occidental.

Biden administration cancels illegal leases and opens new processes that could preserve cherished Arctic lands in Alaska. More is needed to tackle the biggest climate threat: further oil drilling on existing oil and gas leases in the Western Arctic 

By land and by sea, America’s Arctic is under attack. Earthjustice is fighting on multiple fronts to protect this irreplaceable region and keep the Arctic’s fossil fuels in the ground.

Erik Grafe, Attorney, Alaska Office, Earthjustice: “Drilling America’s Arctic refuge is a climate and human rights disaster, and the Biden administration knows the importance of re-establishing leadership on those two critical fronts. Now Congress needs to finish the job.”

Biden previously placed a temporary moratorium on oil and gas leasing activities on the Arctic Refuge coastal plain

If we’re going to avoid the worst impact of climate change, we must keep Arctic oil in the ground.

Generations of Americans have protected the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from development. The Arctic Refuge, which spans 19 million acres across northeast Alaska, is one of the planet’s last fully intact wild landscapes. The region’s tundra, rivers, and mountains shelter migratory birds from all 50 states and six continents each summer. Grizzlies, wolverines, musk ox,…

Conservation groups represented by Earthjustice take legal action to halt the oil industry’s imminent advance into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, by asking the Court to put a freeze on oil leasing and seismic activity that would permanently mar the landscape while an existing legal challenge is underway.

Interior is rushing to sell leases and permit industrial seismic surveying in the Refuge in the next few weeks

In its waning days of power, the Trump administration is attempting to open the Arctic for oil and gas drilling in sacred and irreplaceable Alaskan wilderness.

Agency is ignoring impacts to people, climate, and wildlife, and relying on flawed science in its rushed, secretive process