Conservation Groups Represented by Earthjustice Sue BLM Over NPR-A Lease

Conservation organizations filed suit in Alaska federal court on Feb. 17, 2026, challenging a Bureau of Land Management lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve‑Alaska that Earthjustice says "encompasses approximately 5.5 million acres across more than 600 tracts." The amended and supplemented complaint, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth U.S. and represented by Earthjustice, restarts a paused 2020 lawsuit from the first Trump administration, according to Earthjustice materials.

The BLM, according to Earthjustice, will accept bids from oil companies until March 16 and will announce sale results via livestream on March 18. Plaintiffs challenge both the immediate lease sale footprint and the agency’s Integrated Activity Plan, which Earthjustice says "opens 18.5 million acres within the 23‑million‑acre Reserve to potential oil and gas drilling and infrastructure."

Earthjustice says the tracts offered "are ecologically and culturally important lands and include nearly all the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area and a large portion of the Colville River, critically important areas for wildlife and subsistence that have long been protected from oil and gas extraction." The complaint also includes Endangered Species Act claims; Earthjustice reported the groups sent a January notice of intent to sue the BLM and the Secretary of the Interior over alleged failures to protect Chukchi and Beaufort Sea polar bears, which are listed as threatened under the ESA.

Associated reporting notes additional legal challenges and disputed agency actions. AP reporting, as cited in the materials, says one suit asks a judge to declare arbitrary and improper a decision by an Interior Department official canceling a Biden‑era right‑of‑way intended to protect the Teshekpuk caribou herd and habitat across roughly 1 million acres within the special area; the AP account describes conservation groups and an Iñupiat group filing related legal challenges. Bloomberg Law coverage quoted plaintiffs saying the BLM "recently opened some of the most ecologically and culturally sensitive lands in the Arctic to oil and gas leasing by misreading its statutory authority, reversing years of factual findings without explanation, and conducting an environmental review that is incapable of supporting its decision."

The suit comes amid wider litigation over BLM rulemaking and land management. Conservation Lands Foundation materials note motions to intervene in defense of the Public Lands Rule and describe the rule as a "framework to ensure healthy landscapes, abundant wildlife habitat, clean water, and balanced decision‑making on our nation’s public lands." Eelp Law Harvard tracking cited multiple related cases filed by states and industry since 2024 that challenge BLM rules and resource management plans.

The supplied materials do not include a docket number for the Feb. 17 amended and supplemented complaint, nor do they include a response from the Bureau of Land Management or the Department of the Interior. For follow up, Earthjustice and plaintiff contacts listed in source materials include Lindsay Tice, Friends of the Earth U.S., (202) 783-7400 ext. 8403, ltice@foe.org, and Conservation Lands Foundation at (970) 247-0807, info@conservationlands.org.