Interior Tries Again on the Cook Inlet Lease Sale Nobody Wanted

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Seven months after the first federal oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet failed to draw a single bid, the Marine Minerals Administration today proposed offering the same 1.05 million acres again. The March 2027 sale is the second of six Cook Inlet sales required under the 2025 budget law.

Following is a reaction from Taryn Kiekow Heimer, Director of Ocean Energy at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“The oil industry already gave its answer on Cook Inlet, and the answer was nothing. Not one bid. Claiming Cook Inlet is central to America’s energy future doesn’t make it true, and running the same sale again won’t change the outcome. Congress should stop forcing Alaskans to sit through this rerun every year.”

“Cook Inlet is home to critically endangered beluga whales. More drilling here puts Alaska’s extraordinary natural resources, wildlife, and communities at risk while locking us into an outdated energy strategy. Authorizing more drilling is not a vision for the future–it’s a refusal to plan for one. We should be protecting Cook Inlet and investing in cleaner energy–not gambling Alaska’s environment and our future with another round of oil and gas leases.”

Established in 1970, NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council) works to safeguard the earth, its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. Our team of more than 800 lawyers, policy experts, scientists, economists, and communications specialists work across the United States and around the world, from offices in Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Santa Monica, as well as a representative office in Beijing and affiliate offices in New Delhi (through NRDC’s wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, NRDC India Private Limited) and London (through its UK-based partner NRDC International).