Photo Courtesy Department of Interior
ANWR leasing efforts to rise under Trump
terior Department said in a news re- lease. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alas - ka, blamed former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for sabotaging the sale with restrictions, however, which she said discouraged bidding. The failure of the sale sets the stage for a new effort to lease tracts in the refuge under incoming Republican President Donald Trump. The lack of bids was expected in Alaska because of terms and stipula- tions for the leases laid out by Haa- land. Congress mandated that two sales
be held in the 2017 Tax Act, which passed in 2019 under Trump’s first term as president. The terms for the sale were set by the Trump Adminis- tration. The second sale was held un- der the Joe Biden Administration. Trump is now back in office and is expected to push Congress, where both the Senate and U.S. House are Republican-controlled, to extend the 2017 Tax Act. That will create an opportunity for the new president and Alaska’s con- gressional delegation to insert a new requirement for leasing in the new legislation. Under new management,
January’s federal federal lease sale draws no bidding No bids were received for a planned federal lease sale in the Arctic Nation- al Wildlife Refuge held by the U.S. De - partment of the Interior on Jan. 10. “This concludes the second con- gressionally-mandated sale required by the 2017 Tax Act, which directed the BLM to hold two lease sales in the Coastal Plain,” of the refuge, the In -
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