Environmental Groups Lose Early Bid to Block Alaska Oil Leasing

Conservation groups lost their bid Wednesday to block the Interior Department from holding oil and gas lease sales in parts of Alaska previously protected from such activity.

Grandmothers Growing Goodness and the Wilderness Society in February sued Interior in the US District Court for the District of Columbia over its decision to claw back conservation plans and open more of Alaska’s Arctic to oil and gas development. The case was transferred to the district court in Alaska and assigned to Judge Sharon L. Gleason.

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management issued a ...