Biden’s Arctic Refuge Oil Lease Auction Ripe for Challenge (1)

The Biden administration’s decision to include restrictions in the auction of oil drilling rights in part of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is legally vulnerable as the state looks to the next administration to allow more oil development.

The Bureau of Land Management on Monday finalized a decision to lease 400,000 acres of the Arctic coastal plain within ANWR for oil and gas development as required under a 2017 tax law. The lease sale, scheduled for Jan. 9, is the second of two such sales that the law requires.

The decision included a long list of restrictions on drilling, such ...