to rule on underlying lawsuits challenging the
adequacy of the environmental review process
undertaken by the federal government.
Chad Padgett, the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management’s Alaska state director, defended
the review process as rigorous and disputed
critics’ claims that the sale had been rushed. He
called the sale a success.
The land management agency has said
under an “optimistic, aggressive hypothetical
scenario” exploration could begin within two
years after a lease sale, with production eight
years after a sale.
Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska
Oil and Gas Association, said while the sale’s
results “may not have been as robust as we
might have expected, industry still supports
future access to this area.”
“Today’s sale reflects the brutal economic
realities the oil and gas industry continues to
face after the unprecedented events of 2020,
coupled with ongoing regulatory uncertainty,”
she said in a statement.
Adam Kolton, executive director of Alaska
Wilderness League, called the sale “a huge
embarrassment” for Alaska’s congressional
delegation, which supported the decades-long
push to open the coastal plain to drilling, and to
President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Essentially, the Trump administration had a
party, hoped the oil industry would show up,
and it didn’t,” he said. Kolton called the sale the
“death knell for anybody who’s arguing that this
is going to be an oil, jobs and revenue bonanza. I
mean, they’ve just been unmasked.”