Stop fast-tracking oil drilling in the Alaska petroleum reserve
Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for Production Site Development in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska
Bureau of Land Management· National Petroleum Reserve in AlaskaFederal Register 2026-10020 ↗
The groups on this fight
4 groups work Alaska
By footprint, from the same match the STAND matchmaker runs; none is linked to this decision in our record yet. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.
- Alaska Wilderness League
Works Alaska: built around defending the Arctic Refuge from oil and gas drilling.
- Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges
Works Alaska: lead plaintiff in the November 2025 federal suit challenging the land exchange signed to put a road through the Izembek Wilderness.
- Southeast Alaska Conservation Council
Works Alaska: southeast Alaska’s homegrown defender of the Tongass since 1970.
- The Wilderness Society
Works Alaska: has litigated the 211-mile Ambler industrial road since the original 2020 approvals.
Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.
A new rule would let oil companies skip full environmental review in one of America's largest wild places.
What’s at risk
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, one of the largest intact ecosystems in the United States, is at risk. A proposed rule would automatically approve qualifying oil and gas production sites without case-by-case environmental review, reducing protections for wildlife, water, and Alaska Native communities.
If this goes through
Oil companies that meet preset criteria could get drilling permits approved automatically, permanently weakening the individual project reviews that currently protect this land from development harm.
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
4 holes in the agency’s own analysis
What the public could have raised, from the agency’s own document
- I oppose this action as proposed, and I ask the agency to weigh the specific harms below.
- The BLM proposal would replace case-by-case review of oil and gas production sites in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska with automatic streamlined approval when pre-set criteria are met, removing individualized environmental scrutiny.
- Eliminating project-by-project review in the NPR-A puts one of the largest intact ecosystems in the United States at greater risk from unchecked development pressure.
- Alaska Native communities with ties to the NPR-A deserve full, site-specific environmental review for each production site, not a one-size-fits-all permitting shortcut.
- Streamlining rights-of-way authorization alongside production site permits compounds the threat to wildlife and clean water across the NPR-A by bundling approvals without separate review.
Show all 6 points from the document
- Say something only you can say. The law requires the agency to consider and respond to substantive comments, and specifics are what make a comment substantive.
In the agency’s own words
In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA), and the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976, as amended (NPRPA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Alaska State Office intends to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to evaluate the environmental effects of a rulemaking that the BLM expects to initiate to streamline the authorization of the construction and operation of qualifying production sites and authorization of associated rights-of-way in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). The rulemaking will establish pre-defined criteria for defin…
The reporting behind this
From More Than Just ParksIt’s referred to as Unit 346 in the Twin Mountain II Timber Sale. On the ground, it’s some of the most spectacular old growth we’ve ever witnessed, and it’s marked for clearcutting.
To document and do our part to save America’s greatest old growth forest
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