The Biden administration on Wednesday canceled the seven remaining oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and simultaneously proposed stronger protections across more than 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a paired action that reopens one of the country’s longest-running disputes over energy development, federal land policy and conservation.

The Department of the Interior said the seven leases, all held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, covered roughly 365,000 acres and had been issued after the first-ever lease sale in the refuge’s coastal plain in January 2021. Secretary Deb Haaland said the department’s new review found “multiple legal deficiencies” in the earlier process, including shortcomings in the environmental analysis and treatment of greenhouse-gas emissions.

A reversal of the 2021 lease program

The coastal plain leasing program was authorized by Congress in the 2017 tax law, which directed the federal government to conduct two lease sales in the 1.56 million-acre coastal plain. The Trump administration moved rapidly to establish the program. In August 2020, Interior signed a Record of Decision approving oil and gas leasing, and the Bureau of Land Management held the first sale on January 6, 2021.

That lease sale drew 13 bids covering 11 tracts and generated about $14.4 million in high bids. BLM later issued nine leases covering 437,804 acres. Two private lessees subsequently relinquished their holdings, leaving AIDEA with seven leases.

President Biden ordered a review of the program on his first day in office through Executive Order 13990. Interior then suspended activity under the leases while undertaking additional analysis. The BLM coastal plain program page describes the September 6 action as cancellation of the remaining leases from the 2021 sale.

Interior says the earlier analysis was legally deficient

The department’s September action rests on a draft supplemental environmental impact statement prepared by BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Interior said the new work identified failures to adequately evaluate a reasonable range of alternatives and to properly quantify downstream greenhouse-gas emissions, among other issues. The department also said the prior administration had misinterpreted provisions of the 2017 tax law governing the leasing program.

That legal rationale is central because the cancellation is not simply a new policy preference. Interior is asserting that the federal government has authority to cancel leases issued in violation of statute or regulation. The decision therefore sets up a likely legal dispute over the scope of that authority, the obligations imposed by Congress in 2017 and the status of property interests created by the 2021 sale.

The action also arrives in a broader Alaska energy context. The same administration approved ConocoPhillips’ Willow oil project in the National Petroleum Reserve in March, while also announcing new conservation measures elsewhere in the Arctic. In that March package, Interior withdrew about 2.8 million acres of the Beaufort Sea from future oil and gas leasing and announced plans to consider stronger safeguards for special areas in the petroleum reserve.

More than 13 million acres in the petroleum reserve targeted for new safeguards

The second part of this week’s announcement concerns the roughly 23 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, west of the Arctic Refuge. Interior proposed a rule that would strengthen protection of five existing special areas: Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay.

According to Interior, the rule would limit new leasing and industrial development across more than 13 million acres and prohibit new leasing across 10.6 million acres. The department said the rule is intended to preserve wildlife habitat, subsistence resources and other values while still recognizing valid existing rights. It also would require recurring review of whether additional special areas or resource values merit protection.

The policy significance is substantial because the petroleum reserve was created for energy purposes but is also governed by a statute directing Interior to protect sensitive environmental and subsistence resources. The administration is using that framework to place more durable constraints on future development in areas it considers ecologically significant.

Alaska officials and conservation groups see fundamentally different stakes

Alaska’s political leadership has long argued that federal restrictions on North Slope development undermine the state’s economy and Congress’s intent. Supporters of leasing point to the coastal plain’s estimated petroleum potential and to the state’s reliance on oil-related revenue. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that the broader coastal plain contains billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil, although actual development would depend on economics, infrastructure, permitting and litigation.

Conservation advocates and many Indigenous residents, particularly the Gwich’in, argue that industrial development could threaten caribou calving grounds and subsistence traditions. Other Alaska Native communities have supported development, underscoring that the region is not politically or culturally uniform.

The federal government is now moving on both fronts at once: canceling the last leases from the 2021 Arctic Refuge sale and writing rules intended to constrain future activity across large portions of the petroleum reserve. The combined action is among the most consequential federal land-management decisions of the year and ensures that Alaska’s North Slope will remain a central test of how Washington balances domestic energy production, statutory leasing mandates and environmental protection.