This bill became law on 2025-12-11 as Public Law No. 119-52.
The summary below describes the bill at the version we last reviewed; the enacted text may differ.
YourVoice.Now Summary
EnvironmentCorporate BenefitsTransparency & AccountabilityAlaska's Arctic refuge lost its 2024 oil and gas limits — they can't come back without a new law.
Environment
The canceled decision had ruled out oil and gas leasing on about 1.2 million acres. The coastal plain covers roughly 1.56 million acres in all. Those acres are open to leasing again under an older 2020 plan. The government brought that plan back in January 2025.
Under the Congressional Review Act, an agency cannot bring back a canceled rule. A close copy is barred too. Limits like the 2024 ones would take a new law.
Corporate Benefits
The 2024 plan put up only 400,000 acres for lease. That is the smallest amount federal law allows. Most of it came with strict limits on surface work. Bidders are no longer held to that plan.
Transparency & Accountability
The Government Accountability Office is Congress's watchdog. In August 2025 it said this land decision counted as a rule. That let Congress vote to cancel it, since the agency never sent it in for review.
More about this bill
Most people see no change in daily life. Congress canceled a December 2024 decision by the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that manages federal land. That decision governed oil and gas leasing on the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It had kept about 1.2 million acres there closed to leasing. It offered only 400,000 acres for sale, the least federal law allows. That decision no longer has legal force. Congress used the Congressional Review Act, a law that lets it cancel recent agency rules. Under that act, the agency cannot bring back the same plan or a close copy. Only a new law from Congress could allow that. The people closest to this are Alaskans who live near or use the refuge, and companies that bid on leases. Whether drilling follows depends on future lease sales. The last sale, in January 2025, drew no bids.
Congressional Summary
This joint resolution opens public land for oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Specifically, the joint resolution nullifies the record of decision (ROD) issued by the Bureau of Land Management on December 9, 2024, for the program that leases, develops, produces, and transports oil and gas in and from the Coastal Plain program area within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.The 2024 ROD that is being nullified by this resolution replaced the 2020 ROD that made all of the approximately 1.6 million acres of the program area available for oil and gas leasing. The 2024 ROD made approximately 1.2 million acres unavailable for leasing or exploration in order to protect and conserve resources and certain uses in these areas. However, the 2024 ROD requires the statutory minimum of 400,000 acres to be made available for oil and gas leasing in a specified lease sale, subject to certain stipulations and operating procedures. Under current law, those acres must be located in the areas with the highest potential for the discovery of hydrocarbons.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Public Law
- Action Date
- 2025-12-11
- Date Added
- 2026-07-10
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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