An Alaska federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s reversal of Biden-era restrictions on offshore oil and gas leasing, ruling that the environmental groups that brought the case lacked standing.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska dismissed the complaint without prejudice earlier this week, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The ruling means the case could potentially be refiled if the plaintiffs can establish a sufficient legal basis to sue.
During his final days in office, President Joe Biden withdrew more than 600 million acres of the Outer Continental Shelf from consideration for offshore oil and gas leasing. Trump rescinded those withdrawals on his first day back in office, allowing the affected areas to be considered as part of a future federal leasing program.
A coalition of environmental organizations challenged Trump’s action, arguing that the president lacked the authority to reverse the withdrawals and that reopening the areas could cause imminent environmental harm through oil and gas exploration.
The court concluded that the alleged harm remained speculative. It noted that no applications for geological or geophysical exploration were pending in the affected waters outside the western and central Gulf of America.
Because offshore development would still require additional regulatory decisions and approvals, the judge found that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated a substantial risk of imminent injury.
“The court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ case, because they failed to show an imminent injury from President Trump’s reopening of the OCS,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson said in a statement.
Gustafson said the timing and location of any future energy development would depend on a regulatory process that remains underway. He argued that the administration’s policy priorities and expressions of interest from the oil and gas industry were not enough to establish a concrete injury.
The dismissal was based on standing and did not resolve the broader legal question of whether Trump had the authority to rescind the Biden-era withdrawals. Attorneys from the Justice Department’s Energy and Natural Resources Division handled the case.
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