Last week, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Biden administration over its September 6th decision to rescind seven oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The administration’s decision, which was made without consulting Alaska Native communities, is a great injustice to the North Slope communities within and on the perimeter of ANWR. It furthermore violates the 2017 Tax Act, which included a clear mandate to open the 1002 area of ANWR, an area only 0.01% of its total land, to responsible resource development projects. The decision and its unilateral development continues the Biden administration’s troubling pattern of inconsistent policymaking that prioritizes its own agenda over the rights of Alaska Native communities.
These communities were blindsided by the administration’s announcement to rescind leases in the ANWR, with many North Slope tribal leaders learning about the decision through the press. The residents of Kaktovik, the North Slope city located directly in ANWR and the 1002 area, were given no notice to the decision despite its outsized impact on their ancestral homelands. The administration then hastily planned a community “meeting” to discuss its 1400-page Coastal Plain Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) in the midst of our fall subsistence activities and with only two business days’ notice. Only seven community members were able to attend.
“This is no way to treat Alaska Native communities,” said Nagruk Harcharek, President of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat. “This administration has yet to live up to its repeated promises to listen to and work with Indigenous communities who overwhelmingly support resource development projects in our region. Rather than producing energy under robust American environmental protections on the North Slope, the Biden administration chooses instead to ease sanctions in Venezuela’s oil sector, making concessions to foreign dictators and countries with shoddy environmental track records to meet America’s energy needs.”
“Our communities and elected officials on the North Slope have been steadfast in our support of responsible development on our ancestral homelands,” said North Slope Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak. “They are a critical component of our region’s economy and the long-term health of our Iñupiaq culture. Yet the federal government’s inconsistent policy making continues to complicate our economic security, ability to practice subsistence traditions, and expand modern infrastructure and amenities to our communities, many of which are only one generation removed from third-world conditions unrecognizable to the lower 48.”
The North Slope welcomes AIDEA’s efforts to seek justice and hopes that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia respects the legality of their contracts and, by extension, the North Slope Iñupiat’s right to self-determination.