Comment by Oct. 23 or lose the right to appeal Alaska's 2027 Cook Inlet and Alaska Peninsula lease sales

Written comment must reach the state by 5 p.m. on Oct. 23 to preserve any right to challenge two upcoming oil and gas lease sales. Only a person who comments during the new-information period and is affected by the final best interest finding may ask the commissioner to reconsider and then appeal to Superior Court.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas posted the call for new information Sept. 23 on the Cook Inlet and Alaska Peninsula areawide lease sales, two of the state's five sale areas. Both are tentatively scheduled for spring 2027.

State law requires the division to solicit new information each year, then either supplement the governing best interest finding or declare no substantial new information at least 90 days before a sale. A finding is a 10-year determination that a sale serves the state's interests and sets mitigation measures for lessees. The most recent Cook Inlet finding was issued in 2018 and supplemented in 2019. The Alaska Peninsula finding was issued in 2023 and has not been supplemented.

The division wants research from the past year on subsistence uses, fish and wildlife habitat, cultural resources and the sales' fiscal effects.

The call puts the Cook Inlet area at 833 tracts, about 1.5 million acres onshore and 1.8 million offshore, and the Alaska Peninsula area at 1,004 tracts, 3.3 million onshore and 1.7 million offshore. Tracts run 640 to 5,760 acres. Cook Inlet tracts lie in the Matanuska-Susitna, Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula boroughs; Alaska Peninsula tracts in the Lake and Peninsula, Bristol Bay and Aleutians East boroughs and the Dillingham Census Area.

A Bureau of Ocean Energy Management scoping report for a separate federal sale in Lower Cook Inlet recorded concerns about environmental impacts, fisheries and tribal subsistence, including calls for a permanent moratorium. It reflects only those who commented in that process, not a survey of Cook Inlet residents or fishing interests.

Luke Saugier, Hilcorp Alaska senior vice president, told a joint House and Senate Resources committee meeting on Sept. 10 that new drilling was economic only because of what he called DNR's creative new leasing terms.

Submit by mail to the division, by fax to 907-269-8938 or by email to [email protected].