![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2NS4BWG3HFGSHAA5S5RIWLT64Q.jpg\")
Alaska\u2019s economic development agency owns oil leases at the northern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge \u2014 one of the most hotly debated areas of federal land in the country. (Max Graham\/Northern Journal) <\/p>\nAlaska\u2019s economic development agency owns oil leases at the northern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge \u2014 one of the most hotly debated areas of federal land in the country. (Max Graham\/Northern Journal) <\/p>\n
Alaska\u2019s industrial development agency this week is set to vote on spending $190 million on controversial plans for oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.<\/p>\n
The budget<\/a>, drafted by staff and still pending approval by the agency\u2019s governor-appointed board, includes up to $175 million for advanced geologic testing, plus as much as $15 million to bid on new areas of the refuge in an upcoming federal lease sale.<\/p>\n If approved, the plans from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, could represent a major step toward development in the refuge. They could also represent a massive expenditure, as $190 million exceeds the yearly general fund budgets of more than half of Alaska\u2019s executive branch agencies.<\/p>\n The refuge occupies the state\u2019s northeast corner, east of existing oil infrastructure, and its future has been the subject of a fierce, decades-long national debate. No oil is produced there now, and just one community sits within it, the I\u00f1upiaq village of Kaktovik.<\/p>\n AIDEA\u2019s proposed spending is outlined in a resolution that the authority\u2019s board is set to discuss at a meeting Wednesday. The state published a notice<\/a> about the meeting on Sunday.<\/p>\n The geologic work, known as seismic testing, involves searching for oil deep underground by using sound waves \u2014 a technique that geologists liken to an ultrasound of the earth.<\/p>\n The program would allow the agency to move to \u201cthe next level\u201d of exploration and development in the Arctic refuge, according to Randy Ruaro, AIDEA\u2019s executive director and a former chief of staff to Gov. Mike Dunleavy. But it would also come with risk, as there is no guarantee that exploration would lead to the discovery of profitable deposits; the authority\u2019s critics say its money would be better invested in Alaska\u2019s Permanent Fund.<\/p>\n AIDEA bought seven leases in the refuge, totaling about 365,000 acres, at a sale held during the first Trump administration five years ago. But it has yet to do any exploratory work.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time to move forward and get the oil and gas on the coastal plain, on our leases, producing for the nation,\u201d Ruaro said in a brief phone interview Sunday.<\/p>\n There could be \u201cbillions and billions of barrels of oil\u201d beneath the refuge\u2019s 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, Ruaro added. He cited an October report<\/a> commissioned by AIDEA that describes the refuge\u2019s coastal plain as the \u201cmost prospective unexplored onshore area in North America,\u201d citing new discoveries just to the west.<\/p>\n The area\u2019s true oil and gas potential has long been a mystery, though; much of the geologic data that\u2019s been collected there is decades old, and preliminary. Reporting by the New York Times<\/a> before the 2021 lease sale indicated that confidential results from the sole test well drilled inside the refuge were not encouraging.<\/p>\n The Trump administration is currently taking sealed bids in another lease sale in the refuge, with 700,000 acres available and results to be announced June 5.<\/p>\n AIDEA intends to submit bids, according to Ruaro. \u201cWe\u2019re absolutely interested,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n AIDEA\u2019s board chair, Bill Kendig, declined to answer questions Sunday about the proposed spending.<\/p>\n The proposal on Wednesday\u2019s agenda explicitly exempts authorization for \u201cdrilling or well execution,\u201d but Ruaro said the board could change that at the meeting.<\/p>\n The prospect of oil development in the refuge \u2014 the nation\u2019s largest federal wildlife reserve \u2014 has been hotly debated for 50 years.<\/p>\n Leaders from Kaktovik and other North Slope communities largely support opening the coastal plain to oil companies.<\/p>\n But the area includes the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd \u2014 a cultural touchstone and important traditional food source for the Gwich\u2019in people, who live over the Brooks Range to the south but still within the herd\u2019s migration route, and who are stridently opposed to oil development.<\/p>\n The refuge also provides habitat for migratory birds, polar bears and musk oxen.<\/p>\n Until 2021, the area was never formally opened for oil development, in spite of intense lobbying efforts by Alaska\u2019s congressional delegation.<\/p>\n And it remains far from existing oil infrastructure, which is concentrated near the massive Prudhoe Bay field some 60 miles to the west.<\/p>\n The oil industry itself showed little interest in the first-ever lease sale in the refuge, in 2021. AIDEA was the top bidder, and no major companies participated.<\/p>\n The Biden administration canceled AIDEA\u2019s leases in 2023. But a federal judge later restored them, and the industry\u2019s outlook in the Arctic has shifted since then, with huge demand at a recent lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, opponents of drilling in the Arctic Refuge say they\u2019ll be fighting AIDEA\u2019s move toward development.<\/p>\n Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich\u2019in Steering Committee, called it a \u201cdeeply unpopular project\u201d that lacks a \u201cmeaningful public engagement process.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey know that they don\u2019t have the support of the majority of Alaskans, and most certainly don\u2019t want to face the voices of Gwich\u2019in,\u201d Moreland said in a text message Sunday. \u201cWe will continue to fight any entity that bids on leases on the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge under the legally questionable grounds that this administration is holding a lease sale on. This is way too important to the survival of the Gwich\u2019in and their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n This article<\/a> was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at northernjournal.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alaska\u2019s economic development agency owns oil leases at the northern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-438723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}