In a move that had been expected, the Biden administration on Wednesday canceled the seven remaining oil and natural gas leases in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA) noting there was insufficient analysis of the acreage in question. 

The leases had been auctioned by the Trump administration through the Department of Interior (DOI) Coastal Plain program. The leases were suspended in June 2021 because of “multiple legal deficiencies in the underlying record supporting the leases,” DOI noted 

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a draft supplemental environmental impact statement said the sale had not undergone sufficient analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act and did not account for downstream greenhouse gas...