US will review oil and gas leasing program in Alaska refuge

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced Tuesday it is moving ahead with a new environmental review of oil and gas leasing in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge after the Interior secretary said she found “multiple legal deficiencies” in a prior review that provided a basis for the first lease sale on the refuge's coastal plain earlier this year.

The federal land agency said there will be a public process to determine the scope of the review and identify major issues related to a leasing program. Information gathered during that process will influence development of the review, according to an agency notice.

President Joe Biden, in a January executive order, called on the Interior secretary to temporarily halt activities related to the leasing program, review the program and “as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, conduct a new, comprehensive analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the oil and gas program.”

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in June said her review identified deficiencies in the record underpinning the leases, including an environmental review that failed to “adequately analyze a reasonable range of alternatives.”

She announced plans at that time for the new review and halted activities related to the leasing program while the analysis was pending.

Richard Packer, a spokesperson for the federal land agency, did not answer questions from The Associated Press or provide additional details on the agency's plans, referring instead to an agency press release.

Conservationists welcomed a new review but also called on Congress to repeal the provisions of law calling for lease sales.

A law passed in 2017 called for at least two lease sales within the coastal plain, with the first before Dec. 22, 2021, and...