For Immediate Release – October 14, 2025
Fairbanks, AK – Today, the US House of Representatives introduced an effort to leverage the Congressional Review Act to overturn the most recent decision for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge leasing program issued by the Biden administration. This is yet another action by this Congress and the Trump administration to lease the entire 2,443 square miles of the Arctic Refuge’s Coastal Plain to the oil and gas industry. Under the first Trump administration, the Bureau of Land Management adopted the most destructive leasing program possible, which allowed development of the entire calving grounds for the Porcupine Caribou herd.
To be clear: the original Trump-era program was a rushed and legally dubious process, which blatantly ignored or understated the impacts that leasing and drilling would have in the Arctic Refuge, and deprived climate scientists, our Gwich’in communities, and the American public of the opportunity to meaningfully contribute and engage with the federal government’s decision-making process. The Gwich’in people were outspoken in our opposition to these actions at the time, and we continue to oppose them today. While we will always oppose any oil and gas drilling on these sacred lands, we were grateful that the Biden administration took steps to address the wrongs of the first Trump leasing program and to try to limit the impacts of oil and gas on wildlife in the Arctic Refuge. This action by Representative Nick Begich is a slap in the face to the Gwich’in Nation, and a deliberate attempt to undercut the standards and laws that are designed to protect this sacred landscape and the healthy environment that all Americans depend on.
The Gwich’in Nation has been fighting to protect the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd for decades. We know that any development in the Arctic Refuge would negatively affect their health and migration routes. Our traditional Indigenous knowledge tells us that oil and gas drilling on the Coastal Plain would destroy the caribou calving grounds, devastating the animals and, in turn, the Gwich’in people.
“It is unthinkable that our Congressional decision-makers continue to push to exploit the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge for oil and gas drilling,” said Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee. “There is no world in which anyone could look at the Leasing Program and think ‘this will not devastate the landscape and the animals that rely on it’. We rely on the caribou, not only spiritually and culturally, but also for our survival and subsistence. This action from DC is an insult to the Gwich’in people and ignores those realities. Yet again, we remind those decision-makers that we are not going away, we will continue to raise our voices for what is right, and we will fight any effort to drill in Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit.”
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For Media Inquiries:
Genae Lako, 303-918-6290
Kristen Moreland, Executive Director, 907-328-9634