Offshore Oil & Gas Lease Sales
Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas lease sales in Lower Cook Inlet auction off public waters to private oil companies. These sales give corporations the right to explore for and drill oil and gas beneath the seafloor, putting clean water, healthy salmon, and the future of endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales at risk.
Under current law, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) can offer these federal lands to the highest bidder, even when public opposition is strong and industry interest is weak. In recent years, new legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, has forced BOEM to hold lease sales regardless of their environmental or community impacts.
What Is the Alaska Outer Continental Shelf?
The Alaska Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) includes the submerged lands more than three nautical miles offshore and are managed by the federal government rather than the State of Alaska. With more coastline than all the other U.S. states combined, Alaska’s OCS spans more than a billion acres—nearly two-thirds the size of the Lower 48.
These vast waters are home to thriving fisheries, marine mammals, seabirds, and communities that depend on them. But expanding offshore oil and gas development into Lower Cook Inlet would industrialize one of Alaska’s last relatively unspoiled marine ecosystems.
How OCS Leasing Works
In theory, the OCS Leasing process includes public input and rigorous environmental review. But recent rollbacks to federal environmental laws, like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and BOEM’s decision to cut the public out of its latest review, have made the process less transparent and less accountable than ever.
Planning
Environmental Review
Bidding
Leasing
What is at Stake for Cook Inlet | Tikahtnu
Lower Cook Inlet is one of Alaska’s last relatively unspoiled marine ecosystems, not an industrial zone. It’s home to salmon, halibut, sea otters, seabirds, and the critically endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale. It also supports vibrant fishing, tourism, and recreation economies that rely on clean water. Opening it to oil and gas development threatens all of that.
- Pollution Will Intensify: Cook Inlet is the only offshore drilling region in the nation where the EPA allows companies to dump untreated wastewater directly into the ocean. That same exemption could apply in Lower Cook Inlet, further contaminating the waters that sustain local fisheries and marine life.
- Every Oil Spill Begins with a Lease Sale: BOEM’s own analysis predicts a 19% chance of one or more large oil spills from new drilling. In Cook Inlet’s harsh conditions, high tides, strong currents, and freezing temperatures would make cleanup nearly impossible.
- Fossil Fuel Dependence: Any oil produced from these leases would arrive too late to address short-term energy needs, yet would lock Alaska into decades of fossil fuel dependence, worsening climate change, and delaying the transition to renewable energy.
Why it Matters
Cook Inlet’s economy depends on clean water, healthy fisheries, and the natural beauty that draws visitors from around the world. Allowing new offshore drilling without public input threatens not only endangered belugas and salmon runs but also the livelihoods of fishermen, tourism operators, and local communities who rely on these waters.
Take Action
BOEM’s decision to move forward without public comment is unacceptable. Alaskans and all Americans deserve a seat at the table when federal agencies make decisions that affect our shared waters and wildlife.
Sign our petition calling on BOEM to reinstate the public process.
Alaskans deserve to have a seat at the table. Allowing oil and gas extraction in Lower Cook Inlet risks the health and well-being of the local economy and the marine environment on which our regional economy relies. The decision to bypass public comments and hearings deprives Cook Inlet residents and all Americans of their rightful role in federal decision-making. Public involvement leads to better outcomes. The people who study and use these waters, whether for commercial fishing, tourism, recreation, or subsistence, understand the risks and the best ways to mitigate them.
The Troubled History of Lease Sale 258
Lease sale has been hotly contested by local communities since its inception. In 2024, a federal judge ruled that BOEM’s initial review of Lease Sale 258 violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The judge found that BOEM was inadequate in its assessment of alternatives, in order to minimize impacts to Cook Inlet’s critically endangered beluga whale population. The court ordered BOEM to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) and suspended Hilcorp’s lease until the review was complete.
But In Fall 2025, BOEM made an unprecedented move — it claimed it will finalize the process by the end of the year without holding hearings and without giving community members, tribes, and stakeholders any chance to weigh in.
While regulatory environmental rollbacks have given agencies discretion around whether to include public participation, BOEM’s decision to exclude the public starkly contrasts with how the government has conducted NEPA processes for the last 50 years and undermines the spirit of the court’s ruling. It could also be just the beginning — the Trump Administration’s most recent budget (HR name for BBB) required Lower Cook Inlet lease sales annually from 2026 to 2030. The political push to open new parcels of the Inlet to giant oil corporations, and to exclude the public from the planning process, sets a very dangerous precedent for the communities and ecosystems in the Cook Inlet region.
Alaskan Voices Silenced
This is a dangerous precedent. For more than 50 years, NEPA has guaranteed the public a voice in federal environmental decisions. BOEM’s decision to silence that voice undermines both the law and the court’s ruling.
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The Planet Burners Come for Tikahtnu
Every oil spill begins with a lease sale. Every rig, every tanker, every trench brings us closer to the day Tikahtnu is transformed from a vibrant, life-sustaining watershed into an industrial sacrifice zone. But this fight is not over. We have stopped ill-conceived projects before, and with your voice and action, we can do it again!
BOEM Is Silencing the Public on Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258 — Demand a Public Hearing Now
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Federal Government Silences Cook Inlet Voices on Lease Sale 258
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