Groups Issue Notice of Intent to Sue Federal Agencies Over Expected Harm to Polar Bears from Arctic Oil and Gas Development

Three conservation groups issued a letter this week to the Bureau of Land Management and to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum providing the required 60-day notice of the groups’ intent to sue federal agencies for violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The groups say BLM and the Interior Secretary failed to ensure that threatened Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears and the habitat they depend on would not be harmed by opening the Refuge’s 1.56 million-acre Coastal Plain to oil and gas development. 

The Department of Interior opened the Refuge’s Coastal plain to oil and gas leasing on Oct. 23, 2025. Despite acknowledging considerable risks to polar bears – including the loss of important denning habitat, increased human-bear conflicts, scaring mothers away from their dens and the death of cubs that can occur during seismic surveys the oil and gas companies use to explore for oil – the government gave its stamp of approval to the leasing program and declined to impose adequate protective measures for the bears. 

The groups that plan to sue are Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defense Council. They are co-represented by Earthjustice and NRDC. 

Following are statements from the groups and Earthjustice: 

“Fossil fuel extraction is melting the Arctic and making it nearly impossible for polar bears to survive and reproduce. Trump seems hell-bent on worsening that vicious cycle by rubberstamping more drilling,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Polar bears are bearing the brunt of oil drilling and climate change on multiple fronts, from babies being crushed in their dens by seismic testing trucks to losing feeding areas as sea ice melts. Despite a legal obligation to protect polar bears, the Trump administration has been willfully ignoring its responsibility while greenlighting more climate chaos.”

“Given the science and what we know, it is astonishing to have the federal government say the deaths of polar bear cubs don’t matter and that oil and gas activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge doesn’t pose an existential threat to these bears,” said Earthjustice Attorney Hannah Foster. “To make that conclusion, this administration is ignoring the magnitude of harm caused by fossil fuel development. This reckless Arctic agenda spells disaster for Alaska’s wildlife, people, and environment.”

“The Trump Administration’s plan to offer up the Arctic Refuge’s Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing flouts the Endangered Species Act and the wildlife it is designed to protect,” said Bobby McEnaney, Director of Land Conservation at NRDC. “Polar bears live and raise their newborn cubs in this landscape. Seismic testing, roads, and drilling can disturb mothers, kill cubs, and destroy their habitat. The law requires federal agencies to protect these imperiled animals. We’ve put the government on notice and will sue to protect polar bears if Interior continues to violate the law.”

Background

The Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population has declined substantially and is expected to continue to decline to a small fraction of its historical size by the end of the century. They were listed as threatened under the ESA in 2008 and currently have an estimated population of well under 1,000 individuals. They live and den along the northern coast of Alaska and Canada, including on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

The loss of their sea ice habitat is the primary existential threat to these bears. Sea ice loss is driven by global warming that is a direct result of oil and gas development and the burning of fossil fuels. As the sea ice is lost, polar bears are losing access to their prey and denning more often on land, placing them in the way of oil and gas development and making them vulnerable to direct impacts from these activities.