BLM Rule Would Cut NPR-A Pad Approvals to 60 Days, Limit Hunting

The Bureau of Land Management's own analysis has found that a proposed drilling rule would significantly restrict subsistence hunting for three North Slope villages, a finding that requires the agency to hold hearings in those communities before it can proceed. The first is Monday in Utqiagvik, followed by Atqasuk and Nuiqsut later in the week.

The rule, published Sept. 8, would create a faster approval path for oil and gas production sites inside the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve. For a qualifying site, the agency would have to approve the application, or approve it with conditions, within 60 days, and no separate environmental review would be required for each project. The effects would instead be treated as already covered by the single environmental study written for the rule itself.

That replaces the agency's current practice of a separate, multi-year environmental review for each development plan in the reserve. The BLM cites the Willow project, which took nearly five years from start to final decision, as its reason for the change.

To qualify, a site would have to sit entirely within 25 miles of existing oil and gas infrastructure. The BLM says it chose 25 miles over 15 because the wider radius would qualify five companies instead of three, and that because the anchor can be infrastructure built later, including sites approved under the rule, development could progress gradually westward.

The finding that triggered the hearings comes under a federal law requiring the agency to weigh a project's effect on subsistence. The BLM found that the rule would significantly restrict subsistence uses at Nuiqsut, Atqasuk and Utqiagvik. Of 40 Nuiqsut residents who reported hunting caribou between 2010 and 2022, 39 said they used areas the streamlined process could reach.

Such a finding does not stop a federal action. It requires the agency to hold hearings and then make three findings: that the restriction is necessary, that the project uses the minimum public land needed, and that reasonable steps will be taken to reduce harm. Nothing in the record yet says what those findings will conclude.

The environmental analysis behind the rule is also unfinished. The BLM released only the first two chapters on Sept. 4; the chapters covering environmental consequences and public comment are to come in the final version after comments close Nov. 9. The agency says a draft was not required, and that it released the early chapters in keeping with presidential direction to speed Alaskan energy development.

The rule grew out of a petition the Alaska Oil and Gas Association filed in May, asking Interior for a development permit program in the reserve.

Native institutions on the Slope have responded in different registers. Kuukpik Corporation, the village corporation for Nuiqsut, told the agency it cannot support a rule that equates permitting efficiency with removing project-by-project judgment. The North Slope Borough, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation filed jointly, writing that they generally support streamlined permitting if it is environmentally sound, includes meaningful consultation and does not harm subsistence, and that "these are our homelands, our lives, and our futures that are at stake."

Those comments were all filed in early July, before the rule's text existed, so none addressed its specific terms. The records reviewed carry no statement from any of the village hunters the subsistence finding describes, and no record that tribal consultation has occurred. The hearings are where that testimony would be entered.

The Utqiagvik hearing is Monday evening at the Inupiat Heritage Center, with sessions in Atqasuk and Nuiqsut on Sept. 17 and 18 and three virtual sessions the following week. Written comments close Nov. 9.