A federal judge in Alaska has blocked environmental groups’ challenge against the Trump administration’s decision to reopen millions of acres of offshore waters in the Arctic and elsewhere to oil and gas development.
Chief Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Monday ruled the environmental coalition led by the Northern Alaska Environmental Center lacked standing to bring their suit.
The groups failed to show they faced imminent harm from President Donald Trump’s 2025 decision to reverse his predecessors’ orders to permanently close off broad swaths of the outer continental shelf (OCS) from fossil fuel development, she said.
Gleason acknowledged it was likely that the Interior Department planned to issue permits for oil exploration and development, but there were still multiple steps to go before the groups challenging the decision would be harmed.
“Presently, the Court can only speculate as to whether any of the previously withdrawn OCS acreage will be included in any new oil and gas leasing program or proposed lease sale,” Gleason wrote in an order dismissing the case.
Former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden had issued orders permanently stopping drilling in parts of the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, citing the risks development posed to the climate, marine life and subsistence lifestyles.
When Trump returned to office for a second term, he issued an executive order reversing the withdrawals and directed Interior to advance oil and gas development in those areas.
The agency announced in April 2025 that it was beginning a new five-year plan for offshore development that would replace the current plan and could include some of the areas reopened to leasing under Trump.
Interior does not comment on pending litigation as a matter of policy.
Gleason, appointed to the bench by Obama, stopped short of addressing the key issue in the environmental groups’ case — whether the president has authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to reverse permanent withdrawals of federal waters.
“We’re disappointed the court found that offshore drilling activities are not imminent. But this is not a final ruling on the merits of the case,” said George Torgun, a senior attorney at Earthjustice’s Oceans Program representing the environmental coalition, in a statement.
“This administration has been doing everything in its power to open our coasts to fossil fuel development,” Torgun said. “We continue to maintain that President Trump’s attempt to open withdrawn areas for oil leasing is unlawful, and we intend to pursue those claims if and when any offshore activities are on the horizon.”
Environmental groups warned in court filings that development in offshore waters could still pose imminent risk from seismic surveys that can occur years before any drilling begins. They said leasing in the previously withdrawn areas would be harmful to a range of marine life, including polar bears and walruses in the Arctic, marine monuments in the Pacific, fish nurseries in the Atlantic and the critically endangered Rice’s whale in the Gulf of Mexico.
