On December 11, 2025, the Alaska Native organization Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, and environmental organizations Center for Biological Diversity and The Wilderness Society (together, “Plaintiffs”) sued the United States Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, and various federal officials (together “DOI”) in the Alaska Federal District Court. The lawsuit’s topic: Conoco-Phillips 2025-26 oil exploration and drilling plan in the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska (“NPR-A”).
By challenging the approval of Conoco-Phillips’ 2025-26 winter oil exploration and drilling plan, Plaintiffs’ lawsuit has the potential to prevent oil exploration and drilling in the NPR-A this winter. The exploration plan would involve seismic-exploration equipment, and a 200-person operations camp, moving throughout a 45-mile portion of the NPR-A. According to Plaintiffs, this exploration project will disturb caribou and raptor populations that spend the winter in the NPR-A. The drilling plan would similarly require mobile camps and machinery to move throughout the NPR-A which, according to Plaintiffs, will similarly harm wildlife located in the NPR-A.
Plaintiffs allege that the DOI fast-tracked the approval of these plans, without providing a sufficient opportunity for public comment. Plaintiffs allege that their initial requests that the DOI publish the details of Conoco-Phillips’ proposal were ignored. They additionally allege that the DOI only provided a week-long public comment period, and that the comments and mitigations proposals that were received were largely ignored. While Plaintiffs seek a long term rescission of the administrative record that allows Conoco-Phillips’ plan to go forward, they are additionally seeking injunctive relief to prevent Conoco-Phillips from beginning exploration or drilling in the interim.
On December 15, 2025, Conoco-Phillips filed an unopposed motion to intervene as defendants in the proceeding, arguing that they should be allowed to defend their interest in oil exploration and drilling in the NPR-A. The Court granted Conoco-Phillips motion to intervene on December 16, 2025. Subsequently, the State of Alaska moved to intervene as well, and that motion was granted on December 29, 2025.
Litigation over oil exploration and drilling in the NPR-A is not new. In June 2024, a separate Alaska Native group, Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, brought suit against many of the same defendants who were then under the Biden administration. That lawsuit challenged an agency rule that curtailed oil exploration and drilling in the NPR-A. Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, alongside additional plaintiffs such as Conoco-Phillips, argued that the defendants in that case had ignored their statutory duty to consult with Alaska Native organizations on Alaska’s north slope before creating the rule. The plaintiffs additionally argued that the rule was arbitrary and capricious, and contrary to federal law. A year after the suit was filed, however, the defendants, at that point under the Trump administration, voluntarily remanded the challenged rule, clearing the way for additional oil exploration and drilling.
While full resolution of this new lawsuit is unlikely to be reached anytime soon, there is a possibility that the Court may issue a preliminary injunction that will prevent Conoco-Phillips from putting its plans in place this winter.
