A coalition of local and regional governments, tribal governments and indigenous businesses in the North Slope region has filed a lawsuit to overturn new environmental protections in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage by the organization Voice of the Arctic Inupiatclaims that the regulation issued by the Ministry of the Interior on 19 April should be declared invalid because it is the result of a flawed procedure.

The new rule, proposed by the Bureau of Land Management last September and finally adopted in April, makes some incremental changes to the Integrated Activity Plan enacted by the Obama administration in 2013. That plan banned about half of the reservation from leasing and identified five “special areas” as areas that cannot be developed because of their ecological and cultural significance.

The new rule codifies the protections included in the Integrated Action Plan, making them requirements rather than guidelines. It makes the protections for the five designated areas more permanent and includes provisions for possible future additions.

The lawsuit focuses on restrictions on oil production, alleging that the rule “turns large portions of NPR-A into a de facto wildlife refuge.”

The members of Voice of the Arctic InupiatA diverse group that includes the North Slope county government, Arctic Slope Regional Corp., the Arctic Slope Iñupiat community and Ilisagvik College in Utqiagvik have significant interests in continued oil development on the Indiana-sized reservation, the lawsuit says. The members benefit from the revenue and jobs created by oil development there, it says.

In the lawsuit, which names the BLM, the Department of the Interior, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and BLM Alaska Director Steve Cohn as defendants, Voice of the Arctic writes: Inupiat alleges that the new rule was improperly enacted due to several legal deficiencies, including that the agency failed to prepare a complete environmental impact statement, that it deviated from NPR-A's four-decade leadership that prioritized oil production, and that it lacked “meaningful” engagement with the people of the North Slope, according to the lawsuit.

“Our complaint speaks for the voices of the North Slope Iñupiat, who the federal government has silenced, blocked and despised since blindsiding us with its unilateral mandates in September 2023,” Nagruk Harcharek, the organization's president, said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that we have been forced to turn to the courts to seek a solution to this seriously flawed ruling and the process that led to it. If the government had seriously engaged with the North Slope Iñupiat, we likely would not be in this position today.”

The Interior Ministry declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The new rule followed an attempt by the Trump administration to adopt a new plan to replace the Obama-era Integrated Activities Plan. The plan would have opened 82 percent of the reservation to oil leasing, including areas in and around Teshekpuk Lake, the North Slope's largest lake, which has been protected for decades.

Although the Trump plan was finally drafted in the final days of his administration, it was never implemented. The administration continued under the Obama administration's 2013 plan.

The petroleum reserve on the west side of the North Slope contains large amounts of oil in a geological formation called Nunashuk, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Although development there occurred much later than at Prudhoe Bay and other sites on state lands, there have been several major discoveries within the reserve related to the Nunashuk formation. The most famous is Willow, which is currently being developed by ConocoPhillips and is expected to begin production in 2029.