JUNEAU â The U.S. government held its first-ever oil and gas lease sale Wednesday for Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an event critics labeled as a bust with major oil companies staying on the sidelines and a state corporation emerging as the main bidder.
The sale, held as scheduled after a judge Tuesday rejected requests by Indigenous and conservation groups to halt the event, garnered bids on half the 22 tracts that were listed as available in the refuge's coastal plain. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which held the sale, said the bids were under review.
The rugged remote area off the Beaufort Sea is considered sacred by the Indigenous Gwich'in. Critics of the lease sale say the region is special, providing habitat for wildlife including caribou, polar bears, wolves and birds, and should be off limits to drilling.