The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management opened a 30-day period for oil and gas companies to nominate areas of Alaska's Beaufort Sea for 2019 lease sales. The agency is also asking to indicate which areas are too sensitive to drill. The move comes just a week after a judge rejected the Trump administration and the oil and gas industry’s request to throw out a lawsuit challenging their authority to drill in the Arctic at all. The U.S. Department of the Interior's five-year offshore drilling plan for 2019–2024 has not been finalized, but the fight between environmentalists, locals, and the administration over the oceans is shaping up to be a brawl.
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