The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) mandates that the Secretary of the Interior must establish an oil and gas leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The TCJA also required that the Secretary of the Interior hold “2 lease sales area-wide” with “the initial lease sale under the oil and gas program under this section not later than [December 2021]” and “a second lease sale under the oil and gas program under this section not later than [December 2024]”. On January 6, 2021, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) held the first oil and gas lease sale for Alaska’s 1002 Area, offering 22 tracts on 1.1 million acres. On September 8, 2023, Secretary Haaland issued a roughly 1,400-page Draft Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), and announced the cancellation of the remaining seven oil and gas leases issued by the Trump administration in the Coastal Plain of ANWR.

Secretary Haaland also issued a proposed rule, Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, which would further limit oil and gas leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). In the proposed rule, the BLM essentially reinterprets the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976 (NPRPA) to treat large swaths of the NRPA as de facto wilderness.

Both actions were opposed by the entire Alaska delegation, along with a majority of stakeholders on the North Slope of Alaska. H.R. 6285 would promptly reinstate the ANWR leases while protecting them from similar political attacks in the future. It would also cancel the BLM’s ongoing rulemaking with respect to the NPR-A.

Legislation

H.R. 6285, the Alaska Right to Produce Act, Introduced by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.)

Press Releases

Supporting Alaska's Native Communities and Domestic Energy Production

Republicans Advance American Energy Solutions Through Committee

Resources

H.R. 6285 Hearing Memo

Hearings and Markups

Legislative Hearing on H.R. 6285

Markup on H.R. 6285