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Climate
Trump's ANWR Oil and Gas Auction Was a Bust—But Alaskan Arctic Still Faces Fossil Fuel Threat
"Even though the interest in today’s sale was tepid, the new leasing still poses significant threats to habitat, iconic wildlife, and Indigenous ways of life," said Earthjustice.
Jun 05, 2026
In an embarrassment for President Donald Trump and his "drill, baby, drill" energy policy, Friday's third oil and gas lease sale in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge once again drew no bids from Big Oil—but conservationists stressed that fossil fuel expansion still poses a serious threat to the pristine wilderness and its human and animal inhabitants.
The US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offered 60 tracts on 689,000 acres in the ANWR in northeastern Alaska's Coastal Plain for lease sales. Just two companies—the government-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and Hex LLC, an Alaska firm—bought five leases that generated a paltry $3.7 million in total receipts.
“Yet again, no major oil and gas companies showed up to bid, because they know that drilling in the Arctic Refuge is a losing proposition,” said Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, which represents the Gwich'in Indigenous people and opposes drilling.
“We will continue to fight the Trump administration’s leasing program, and work with our friends and allies to protect this sacred and irreplaceable landscape from development of any kind," Moreland added.
The Trump administration had touted fossil fuel lease sales as a way to help pay for tax cuts in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that mostly benefited corporations and wealthy individuals. The law, which was signed last July by Trump and extends tax cuts the president enacted in 2017, is expected to result in over $5 trillion in lost revenue through 2034, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, the world's leading independent tax policy nonprofit.
Despite the underwhelming result, the BLM described Friday's ANWR lease sale as "successful," with agency Director Steve Pearce calling it "another important step toward restoring American Energy Dominance and responsibly developing the vast resources Congress directed us to make available in the Coastal Plain."
Friday's lease sale was the third such auction, the first of which was held in 2021 during Trump's first term and generated just 1% of the administration's projected revenue. The Biden administration—which canceled the leases issued in the 2021 sale—held another lease auction last year because Trump's 2017 tax cut law required two ANWR lease sales within seven years. The 2025 auction drew no bidders.
Green groups and other drilling opponents warned that Friday's flop does not diminish the threat posed by fossil fuel development in ANWR, which is home to the North Slope Iñupiat and the Gwich’in peoples and 270 animal species, including all of the world’s remaining South Beaufort Sea polar bears and the 200,000 porcupine caribou upon which the Gwich'in—who call the area the "sacred place where life begins—rely upon for their survival. The North Slope Iñupiat broadly support drilling and called Friday's lease sale "an important milestone."
"Even though the interest in today’s sale was tepid, the new leasing still poses significant threats to habitat, iconic wildlife, and Indigenous ways of life in one of the nation’s most wild and beautiful landscapes," Earthjustice—one of the groups leading a lawsuit challenging the lease sales—said in a statement. "All of today’s leases are in important polar bear habitat, for example."
Athan Manuel, the Sierra Club's director of lands protection, said that "today's lease sale was another embarrassment and broken promise. The Trump administration has pushed leasing out the Arctic Refuge as the way to finance huge tax cuts, yet today generated $3.7 million for the federal government."
“Let's call that what it is, another scam to trick Americans into giving away our precious natural world," Manuel continued. "It does nothing to change the reality that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge remains a risky, controversial, and fundamentally flawed proposition."
"For years, the public was promised that sacrificing the refuge would generate significant economic benefits," Manuel added. "Instead, this leasing program has been plagued by uncertainty while putting one of America's most important public lands at risk."
Autumn Hanna, vice president of the advocacy group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said, "From two previous failed lease sales that delivered less than 1% of promised revenue, taxpayers already know that drilling in the Arctic Refuge is a bad deal."
"Today’s lease sale is yet another reminder that oil and gas development in the refuge is high-risk, low-reward, with zero interest from real industry players," Hanna added. "Americans will not see relief at the pump and, instead, face greater risks from the drilling in a sensitive region.”
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'Hands Off the Arctic,' Say Wilderness Defenders as Trump Holds Alaska Oil and Gas Lease Sale
“Some places are too important to sacrifice,” said one Indigenous leader as the Trump administration invited fossil fuel companies to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Jun 05, 2026
The Trump administration is set Friday to sell oil and gas drilling leases on 689,000 acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a pristine and protected area in northeastern Alaska's coastal plain known for its massive biodiversity and held sacred by its Indigenous inhabitants.
The US Department of the Interior's (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is offering 60 tracts in the ANWR to fossil fuel companies that submitted bids by Wednesday. The lease sale is the first of four in the ANWR mandated under the One Big Beautiful Bill signed by President Donald Trump last year and follows two previous sales this decade, one of which saw little interest during Trump's first term and another that generated no bids during the tenure of former President Joe Biden.
The sale is part of Trump's "drill, baby, drill" fossil fuel agenda and follows last October's reopening by the DOI of 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing. The move reversed the Biden administration's 2023 cancellation of all existing oil and gas leases in the ANWR and ban on drilling across 13 million acres of the adjacent National Petroleum Reserve.
The Trump administration also recently transferred approximately 1.4 million acres of public lands along the Dalton Utility Corridor from the BLM to the state of Alaska, a move one conservationist warned "will only help corporate polluters transform Alaska into an industrial wasteland... for the sake of expanding the portfolios of mining and oil and gas companies."
The ANWR is home to Indigenous peoples, primarily the North Slope Iñupiat and the Gwich’in. The former are generally supportive of fossil fuel development, arguing that it provides jobs and revenue and boosts self-determination, while the latter broadly opposes drilling.
The Gwich'in call the area “the sacred place where life begins" and rely upon its rich biodiversity—especially its 200,000-strong porcupine caribou herd—for their survival. ANWR boasts some 270 animal species, including musk oxen, Arctic foxes, snow geese and other migratory birds, and all of the world’s remaining South Beaufort Sea polar bears.
While the American Petroleum Institute, the nation's leading fossil fuel lobby, welcomed Friday's lease sale, calling Alaska's oil and gas "key to America's energy security," Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, countered that "some places are too important to sacrifice."
In a Thursday call with reporters, Moreland said that "tomorrow's lease sale is about much more than economics or development. It is about whether our voices, our culture, and our way of life matters."
Conservationists also denounced the lease sale, which Earthjustice—part of a coalition challenging the DOI's policy in federal court—called "another effort to sell out our public lands to boost corporate profits, while Indigenous communities, wildlife, and future generations carry the risk."
US Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Friday on X that "America's public lands—including the incredible Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—belong to all of us. But now the Trump-Vance administration is auctioning it off to their Big Oil cronies that already have plenty of other areas to drill."
In a video posted Thursday on social media, US Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) called ANWR "the crown jewel of our American National Wildlife Refuge system."
"Tomorrow, the Trump administration is gonna try to lease the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. So I've got a message for all the oil majors out there," the senator said. "I understand you have a job to do. That job never involves drilling in American national parks or national wildlife refuges. Don't bid."
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) also posted a video addressing the lease sale and arguing that Big Oil—part of an industry that spent nearly $450 million during the 2024 election cycle on campaign donations, lobbying, and other efforts to elect Trump and down-ballot Republicans—is "calling the shots."
The Alaska Wilderness League said on X that "no matter how the administration and oil industry spin today’s lease sale, the outcome doesn’t change: weak demand, shrinking interest, and a story that keeps collapsing under its own promises."
"The Arctic is not for sale, never has been, never will be," the group added. "Hands off the Arctic."
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Voters in California City Become First in US to Approve Permanent Ban on Data Centers
"We hope that other communities will use the model set by residents here... as inspiration to stop data centers from encroaching in their backyard," said a Monterey Park city councilmember.
Jun 04, 2026
Voters in Monterey Park, California on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a permanent ban on data centers within city limits, becoming the first city in the US to prohibit the power-hungry facilities via a ballot initiative.
In total, the anti-data center resolution passed with 86% voter support, with only 14% of voters opposed. The resolution's text said that a ban was necessary to "protect air quality, drinking water resources, and public health" and "prevent impacts to electricity and water rates."
Steven Kung, a leader of the local initiative, told ABC 7 Eyewitness News that the result was "a landslide victory."
Kung listed multiple reasons why residents in the city resoundingly rejected building data centers in their community.
"The noise pollution, the air pollution, the rise in the electricity rates," he said, "the deal just didn't make sense and it doesn't make sense for most, if not all, cities data centers go to."
In an interview with Politico, Monterey Park Mayor Elizabeth Yang predicted that her city would be far from the last to pass data center bans, noting data center projects have spurred protests across the country.
"A lot of the other cities that are facing data center proposals are going to follow suit," said Yang. "There's [a] bad reputation across the board, across the country, from other data centers that have been built in neighborhoods."
Monterey Park city councilmember Jose Sanchez expressed a similar sentiment, telling The Guardian that he hoped his city would become a inspiration to others.
"We hope that other communities will use the model set by residents here in Monterey Park," said Sanchez, "as inspiration to stop data centers from encroaching in their backyard."
Data centers have become political lightning rods in recent months, as residents across the country object to their massive resource consumption, which is leading to a major spike in utility bills, as well as the noise pollution they generate.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) earlier this year introduced a bill that would impose a nationwide moratorium on AI data center construction “until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment."
A poll released on Wednesday by Public First showed US residents more opposed to data center construction than any nation in the world, with just 26% of Americans registering support for building more data centers.
This opposition isn't merely abstract, as it has caused major headaches for Big Tech firms that have been scrambling to increase their AI models' compute power.
As The Financial Times reported on Thursday, "dozens of projects collectively worth at least $156 billion have been blocked or stalled since 2025" thanks to local opposition to their development.
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Appellate Court Tosses Youth Case Against 'Unconstitutional' Trump Orders Fueling Climate Crisis
“This decision lets the president direct a sweeping fossil fuel agenda, with no authorization from Congress and no meaningful judicial review, and then tells the children harmed by that agenda that they cannot challenge it until it is unconstitutionally implemented piece by piece," one lawyer said.
Jun 02, 2026
A federal judge in the District of Montana last year "reluctantly" dismissed a lawsuit filed by young Americans challenging a trio of President Donald Trump's anti-climate executive orders and invited the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to correct him—but the panel on Tuesday again tossed the case.
Backed by attorneys at Our Children's Trust and Public Justice, Eva Lighthiser, Rikki Held of Held v. State of Montana, and 20 other children and young adults sued in May 2025 over Trump's executive orders (EOs) boosting the coal industry, declaring a "national energy emergency," and calling on federal agencies to accelerate fossil fuel development.
After the first dismissal from US District Judge Dana Christensen, the young Americans and their lawyers vowed to appeal. However, the 9th Circuit on Tuesday found that "plaintiffs can only speculate that the executive orders are the cause of the many agency actions they allege will exacerbate climate change," and "they have not plausibly alleged that enjoining federal agencies from implementing the executive orders is substantially likely to prevent agencies from taking similar emissions-inducing actions under other lawful authorities."
Issuing an injunction sought by the plaintiffs "would effectively place one federal district court in charge of executive branch energy policy—'an extraordinary and unprecedented role' for a member of the 'unelected and politically unaccountable branch,'" the appellate court also concluded. "Further, by effectively challenging hundreds of current and anticipated agency actions in one lawsuit, Plaintiffs seek to circumvent the jurisdictional and procedural rules Congress has established for challenges to agency actions."
Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and co-executive director of Our Children's Trust, declared in a Tuesday statement that "this decision lets the president direct a sweeping fossil fuel agenda, with no authorization from Congress and no meaningful judicial review, and then tells the children harmed by that agenda that they cannot challenge it until it is unconstitutionally implemented piece by piece. That is not how the Constitution works."
"The court did not decide whether these executive orders are constitutional. It did not decide whether the federal government may knowingly endanger children," she explained. "Instead, it slammed the courthouse doors on children fighting for their lives and told them to file hundreds of cases against every agency action carrying out the president's unconstitutional executive orders. Courts do not become policymakers when they stop unconstitutional government action. That is their job. These young people deserve a court willing to do it."
The lead plaintiff, Lighthiser, stressed that "the court never said we were wrong. They never said the harm isn't real. They just said they wouldn't stop the harm."
"They had the power to act. and they chose not to," she continued. "By the time we are harmed enough to satisfy them, it will be too late. I am a young person. This is my life, my health, my future. And I deserve better than this. We all do."
The decision comes as Trump and his allies continue to serve the interests of the fossil fuel executives who helped him return to power, regardless of the consequences for people and the planet—from gutting key agencies and attacking clean power projects to dismantling a deep-ocean monitoring system that helps researchers understand the impacts of the climate crisis.
"The Trump administration is responsible for a children's health emergency by obligating federal agencies to take actions that dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions and climate change," Dan Snyder, director of Public Justice's Environmental Enforcement Project, said Tuesday. "The 9th Circuit makes no mention of this emergency. Indeed, the 9th Circuit's decision is shocking in what it lacks."
"The court didn't even consider US Supreme Court decisions—or decisions from within its own circuit—which would require it to reach a very different decision than the one it did today," he highlighted. "The court ignored significant and undisputed facts that Trump's executive orders are causing real-world injuries to our children today. And the court ignores its most basic responsibility: finding workable remedies that provide relief to the uncontested injuries being inflicted by the Trump administration on our kids."
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