Environmental groups are restarting a stalled legal fight with the Interior Department over its renewed plan to drill for oil and gas in the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The agency in October announced plans to reinstate a leasing program from the first Trump administration to open nearly all of the 1.56-million-acre area to drilling as part of its efforts to boost energy development in Alaska.
This week, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth filed an amended complaint in a federal court in Alaska arguing that Interior’s latest move continues to violate key environmental laws.
“Allowing oil and gas drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s Coastal Plain makes no legal, economic, or environmental sense,” said Erik Grafe, an attorney at Earthjustice, representing the environmental coalition, in a statement.
