SEE YOU IN COURT, JOE! Alaska Suing the Biden Admin Over Canceled Oil and Gas Leases

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority is suing the Biden Administration for canceling oil and gas leases in the state’s North Slope, one of the country’s largest reserves of pristine federal land.

“The federal government is determined to strip away Alaska’s ability to support itself, and we have got to stop it,” said Republican Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy in a statement.

From Newsmax:

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., challenges the U.S. Interior Department’s Sept. 6 decision to scrap seven oil and gas leases in Alaska’s 19 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area that is acutely vulnerable to climate change and home to grizzly and polar bears, snowy owls, and herds of caribou.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which held the leases before they were canceled, is asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to restore them, arguing the federal government’s decision violates a clear Congressional mandate in a 2017 tax bill to open up the Arctic to drilling.

The canceled leases were sold during the waning days of the Trump administration following a decades-long effort by Alaska officials to open up drilling in the refuge and bolster the state’s petroleum-reliant economy.

ALASKA SUES BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: An Alaska state agency sued the Biden administration over its decision to cancel oil and gas leases in the state's North Slope. MORE: https://t.co/X9y3rM0xJz pic.twitter.com/SYEZ3HqqNi

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) October 20, 2023