The Claim

Reopened 1.56 million acres of the Alaska Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing — reversing the Biden Administration’s 2024 plan that restricted development to the statutory minimum.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Two things: (1) that the Trump administration “reopened” the full 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (the “1002 Area”) to oil and gas leasing, and (2) that this reversed a Biden administration plan from 2024 that restricted development to a statutory minimum. The implicit framing is that the administration took decisive action to unlock energy resources that Biden had locked away.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That opening the Coastal Plain to leasing will produce meaningful oil and gas development. That Biden’s restrictions were an overreach that blocked productive energy activity. That the “statutory minimum” was an artificial constraint below what Congress intended when it passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017.

What is conspicuously absent?

The fact that both administrations are operating within the same statutory framework — the TCJA mandated ANWR leasing, and both the Biden and Trump approaches represent competing interpretations of how that mandate should be implemented. No mention that the industry has shown minimal interest in ANWR leasing: the first sale in January 2021 raised only $14.4 million (against projected billions), almost entirely from a state-owned corporation rather than private oil companies. No mention that the second sale in January 2025 — held under Biden’s restricted plan — received zero bids. No mention that major oil companies, major banks, and 17 international insurance companies have declined to participate in ANWR development. No mention of the Gwich’in Nation’s decades-long opposition to drilling on land they consider sacred calving grounds for the Porcupine Caribou herd on which their subsistence depends. No mention that even under the most optimistic projections, production from ANWR would not begin until 2031 at the earliest. No mention that this substantially overlaps with item 326’s “hundreds of millions of acres” claim, making this a more specific restatement of one component of that broader assertion.

Padding Analysis: ANWR Component of Broader Energy Claims

Item 357 describes one specific component of the broader federal lands reopening claimed in item 326 (“Re-opened hundreds of millions of acres to oil, gas, and coal production”). The 1.56-million-acre ANWR Coastal Plain is explicitly counted within item 326’s acreage total. The same executive orders, secretarial orders, and BLM actions underlie both claims. Item 345 (lease sale revenue) also cross-references the same policy framework. This item isolates the ANWR component from the umbrella claim and presents it as a separate “win.”

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (P.L. 115-97, Section 20001) mandated oil and gas leasing in the ANWR 1002 Area, requiring at least two area-wide lease sales within 10 years, each offering a minimum of 400,000 acres. ¹ The law amended the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) to add, as a fifth purpose of the Refuge, “to provide for an oil and gas program on the Coastal Plain.” The first sale was required by December 2021 and the second by December 2024. The 1002 Area encompasses approximately 1.56 million acres on the north slope of the Brooks Range. This statutory mandate means that both the Trump and Biden administrations were legally required to conduct lease sales — the policy disagreement was over how much of the Coastal Plain to make available and under what conditions.

The Trump administration’s first-term 2020 ROD opened the entire 1.56 million acres, and the first lease sale on January 6, 2021 raised only $14.4 million from nine leases covering 437,804 acres. ² The sale was projected to generate $1.8 billion over a decade. No major oil company bid. Seven of nine leases went to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), a state-owned corporation that spent approximately $12 million — meaning a public entity, not private industry, accounted for 83% of the revenue. Two small private entities (Knik Arm Services and Regenerate Alaska) acquired the remaining two leases.

Biden’s December 8, 2024 Record of Decision adopted Alternative D2, the most restrictive option, making only approximately 400,000 acres available for leasing — the statutory minimum — and closing 74% of the Coastal Plain. ³ The 2024 ROD replaced the 2020 ROD and was the product of a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement initiated in August 2021 after Secretary Haaland determined the original NEPA analysis was legally deficient. The plan limited surface disturbance to 995 acres (half of the 2020 plan’s 2,000-acre limit) and restricted seismic exploration to leased tracts only. Biden had previously canceled AIDEA’s seven leases in September 2023, though a federal court later ruled that cancellation unlawful in March 2025.

The second mandatory lease sale, held January 6, 2025 under Biden’s restricted plan, received zero bids. ⁴ This was the first ANWR lease sale to produce no revenue whatsoever. Contributing factors included the restricted acreage available, onerous lease terms, the absence of seismic data across most of the Coastal Plain, litigation uncertainty, the remoteness of the area from existing infrastructure, Arctic development costs, and the ongoing refusal of major banks and insurance companies to finance or insure ANWR development.

The Trump administration took three separate actions to reverse Biden’s ANWR restrictions. ⁵ First, on January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14153 (“Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential”) directed Interior to rescind the lease cancellations, revoke Biden’s supplemental EIS, and reinstate the 2020 EIS and ROD. Second, on October 23, 2025, BLM issued a new Record of Decision reopening the entire 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain for leasing. Third, on December 11, 2025, President Trump signed H.J. Res. 131, a Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval that formally nullified the 2024 ROD. The CRA resolution prevents any future administration from issuing a substantially similar rule without Congressional approval.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21, enacted July 4, 2025) mandates four additional ANWR lease sales within 10 years. ⁶ The first sale is required within one year of enactment (by July 4, 2026), with subsequent sales at two-year intervals. On February 3, 2026, BLM published a call for nominations and comments for the first OBBBA-mandated sale, with a 30-day comment period. This legislative mandate locks in a leasing schedule that future administrations cannot easily undo through administrative action alone.

Strong Inferences

Industry interest in ANWR development remains structurally limited despite the administrative reopening. ⁷ Across two lease sales spanning five years, the private sector invested approximately $2.4 million. AIDEA — a state entity — provided 83% of the first sale’s revenue. Major oil companies including BP, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron have either divested from or declined to bid on ANWR acreage. Seventeen international insurance companies and multiple major banks have publicly committed not to insure or finance Arctic drilling projects. The area lacks roads, pipelines, and processing infrastructure, and the nearest pipeline (the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System) is approximately 60 miles from the Coastal Plain. EIA projects that even under favorable scenarios, ANWR production could not begin before 2031 at the earliest, with peak production of 150,000 to 880,000 barrels per day depending on resource assumptions and oil prices.

The Gwich’in Nation’s opposition represents a significant Indigenous rights dimension absent from the claim. ⁸ The Gwich’in people, whose 15 villages span northeastern Alaska and northwestern Canada, have relied on the Porcupine Caribou herd for at least 60% of their subsistence for thousands of years. They call the Coastal Plain “Iizhik Gwatsan Gwandaii Goodlit” — “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins” — because it is the primary calving ground for the herd. In 1988, all Gwich’in villages unanimously passed a resolution opposing oil and gas development in the 1002 Area. The Gwich’in Steering Committee and allied conservation groups filed renewed litigation in January 2026 challenging the 2020 and 2025 RODs. However, the Inupiat communities on the North Slope, including the village of Kaktovik (the only community within ANWR), and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation broadly support development, viewing it as essential to their economic future. This Indigenous-community divide complicates any simple narrative about the policy.

What the Evidence Shows

The claim’s factual core is accurate. The Trump administration did reopen the full 1.56 million acres of the ANWR Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing, and Biden’s 2024 ROD did restrict leasing to the 400,000-acre statutory minimum. The reversal was achieved through a three-pronged approach: executive order, new administrative ROD, and Congressional Review Act nullification of the Biden rule. The acreage figures check out.

But the claim omits the context that transforms “reopened” from an accomplishment into a gesture. The market has spoken on ANWR, and it said no. The first lease sale raised $14.4 million against projections of $1.8 billion — less than one percent of expected revenue — and that money came overwhelmingly from a state-owned corporation, not from the oil companies that would actually need to develop the resource. The second sale received zero bids. No major oil company has committed to exploring the area. The financial sector has erected its own blockade through lending and insurance restrictions. The area has no roads, no pipelines, no processing facilities, and sits in one of the most remote and challenging operating environments on earth.

Both administrations are operating within the same statutory framework created by the TCJA. Congress mandated leasing — the question was always about how much of the Coastal Plain to offer and under what conditions. Biden’s approach was to offer the legal minimum while maximizing environmental protections. Trump’s approach is to offer the maximum while minimizing regulatory barriers. Neither approach has produced meaningful industry interest, because the fundamental obstacles to ANWR development are economic and logistical, not regulatory.

The OBBBA’s mandate of four additional lease sales and the CRA’s prohibition on future similar restrictions do represent a durable policy shift. But locking in a schedule of lease sales that may continue to draw zero bids is a political achievement, not an energy one.

The Bottom Line

The Trump administration did reverse Biden’s 2024 ANWR restrictions and reopen all 1.56 million acres to leasing. The claim’s factual assertions are correct. To its credit, the administration also used the CRA to prevent future administrative restrictions — a meaningful long-term policy lock-in that requires an act of Congress to undo.

But “reopened to leasing” is not “opened to production.” The market has repeatedly declined to invest in ANWR development. Two lease sales have produced, respectively, $14.4 million from a state entity and zero bids from anyone. No major oil company, no major bank, and no major insurer has committed to the project. The area lacks all infrastructure necessary for production. The claim presents an administrative action as if it were an energy outcome, when the evidence consistently shows that the binding constraint on ANWR development is not regulatory access but economic viability. Opening a door that nobody walks through is not the same as delivering results — and the claim conspicuously avoids mentioning that the door has been open before, and remained empty.

Footnotes

1. P.L. 115-97, Section 20001 (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017). Harvard EELP, “Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — Oil and Gas Development Tracker.” ↩

2. Taxpayers for Common Sense, “ANWR Lease Sale Yielded Abysmal Results.” BLM, “Leases Issued for ANWR Coastal Plain Oil & Gas Program,” January 2021. ↩

3. Alaska’s News Source, “Interior Dept. announces congressionally-mandated lease sale plan for ANWR,” December 9, 2024. Sen. Murkowski, “Coastal Plain ROD is a Complete Failure,” December 2024. ↩

4. Alaska Beacon, “Oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge draws no bids,” January 8, 2025. ↩

5. Harvard EELP, “Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — Oil and Gas Development Tracker.” BLM, “Progress on Public Lands: BLM 2025 Trump Administration Accomplishments,” January 6, 2026. ↩

6. P.L. 119-21 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act), signed July 4, 2025. BLM, “BLM seeks input, nominations for oil and gas lease sale in Coastal Plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” February 3, 2026. ↩

7. Alaska Beacon, “Oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge draws no bids,” January 8, 2025. Taxpayers for Common Sense, “Zero Industry Interest in Second Oil & Gas Lease Sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” ↩

8. Gwich’in Steering Committee. Anchorage Daily News, “Gwich’in and conservation groups renew lawsuit to stop Trump administration’s ANWR leasing program,” January 14, 2026. Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, “North Slope Inupiat Leaders Voice Support for ANWR Policy Shift,” October 23, 2025. ↩