'Today's outcome reinforces that fossil fuel development in Cook Inlet is no longer a sound investment,' said one campaigner. 'Alaskans know our climate crisis is no joke and are ready to move beyond the fossil fuel era.'
The U.S. Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced that Hilcorp Alaska LLC submitted the sole bid, offering $63,983 for one of the 93 available blocks. That lease may be granted after a 90-day review process.
to hold it before the end of the year by the Inflation Reduction Act , which President Joe Biden signed into law in August. "This damaging sale never should have happened in the first place, and we'll continue challenging it in court and fighting to preserve beautiful Cook Inlet,"Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. "We urge Biden not to issue any leases without meaningful consideration of drilling's threats to local communities and wildlife like the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales, as he's required to do by federal law.
The NRDC's Julia Forgie also highlighted Hilcorp's "record of safety violations and spills," and argued that industry's "lackluster" response to the sale "made clear that there's no need to lease this vibrant ocean ecosystem for oil production."The federal government has held several oil and gas lease sales in the Cook Inlet since the 1970s, but no production has occurred in federal waters there to date.
"The federal government must take aggressive measures to reduce disturbances and restore critically endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales, which have declined by 75%," Whittington-Evans asserted. "And it must pivot to clean energy technologies and stop trying to double down on fossil fuel projects that undermine our climate goals."
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