AIDEA board to consider changes to its $175 million ANWR coastal plain budget

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority board will consider amending its budget for oil and gas work on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain at a special meeting at 10 am Thursday, Nov. 19.

The meeting agenda lists the amended budget resolution but does not say what the amendment would change.

The resolution, adopted in May, authorized up to $175 million for permitting, studies, stakeholder engagement and low-impact 3D seismic work, but not drilling. It separately set aside up to $15 million for bonus bids and the first two years of rent on additional coastal plain acreage, if warranted.

That resolution noted that the Bureau of Land Management had called in February for nominations for a coming coastal plain lease sale. At that sale on June 5, the agency received bids on five tracts totaling 72,049 acres.

AIDEA, a public corporation of the state, already holds seven 10-year federal leases covering 365,775 acres in the coastal plain, an area known as the Section 1002 Area. It won them in the first coastal plain lease sale in January 2021. In March 2025, the federal district court in Alaska vacated the Biden administration's decision to cancel those leases.

Congress set the area aside for oil and gas exploration in 1980 and ordered leasing in 2017.

The board will also take up an amended resolution on Port Mackenzie infrastructure and real estate.

The meeting includes time for public comment. Written comments are due by 4 pm Wednesday, Nov. 18.