Interior Schedules June 5 ANWR Coastal Plain Lease Sale — First Under 2025 Law

The Interior Department has scheduled an oil and gas lease sale in the Coastal Plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for June 5, marking the first ANWR auction under a 2025 law that requires a new series of lease sales in the area.

The move matters because Congress, in H.R.1, ordered the government to hold repeated area-wide lease sales in the refuge’s Coastal Plain on a set timetable. The law, signed July 4, 2025, as Public Law 119-21, requires the Interior secretary, through the Bureau of Land Management, to conduct at least four sales there, with the first due within one year of enactment. That put the deadline for the first sale at July 4, 2026, making the June auction the administration’s opening step under the new mandate.

The Bureau of Land Management announced the sale April 17 and said it will cover the refuge’s Coastal Plain, also known as the 1002 area, a program area of about 1.56 million acres. Sealed bids must be received in Anchorage by 4 p.m. Alaska time on June 3, and the bid opening will be streamed live at 10 a.m. on June 5.

Interior cast the auction as part of the administration’s broader push to expand resource development in Alaska, tying it to Executive Order 14153 and Secretary’s Order 3422. It is not the first lease sale in the refuge overall: the first Coastal Plain sale was held Jan. 6, 2021.

But the clearest reality check is the market response to the government’s most recent attempt. A January 2025 ANWR lease sale drew no bids at all, according to Interior. The earlier 2021 sale generated limited participation, underscoring the tension between Congress’ new directive to keep offering acreage and the weak commercial interest shown so far.

That gap is one reason the June sale will be closely watched. The Coastal Plain is one of the most contested pieces of federal energy policy in Alaska, long at the center of fights over oil potential, wildlife habitat and subsistence uses. Supporters see it as a domestic energy opportunity. Opponents argue the area is ecologically sensitive and central to Alaska Native communities, especially those tied to the Porcupine caribou herd.

The legal fight is also continuing. Earlier leases issued after the 2021 sale were later canceled by the previous administration and have been the subject of litigation. Separate challenges to the underlying Coastal Plain leasing approvals remain active in 2026, including lawsuits brought by Gwich’in tribal interests and conservation groups. The administration is moving forward with the June offering even as those cases are still pending.

Opposition was immediate after the April announcement, with conservation and Indigenous-interest groups saying they would continue to fight drilling in the refuge. The Wilderness Society said in a statement that the lands being offered are “the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou Herd and sacred to Alaska Native people who depend on the caribou herd for their very survival.”

For now, though, the immediate significance is procedural as much as political: the federal government is pressing ahead with a sale that Congress explicitly required, despite an empty auction just months ago and unresolved litigation over the program. Under the statute’s schedule, this June sale is the first of at least four area-wide ANWR lease sales that must be held by July 4, 2032.