Washington (June 5, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass), member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) today issued a statement on the Trump administration’s lease sale for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which offered nearly 700,000 acres of sacred and sensitive lands within the Refuge for sale to oil and gas companies. The auction raised only $3.74 million, with two entities winning bids—one of which is the state development agency for Alaska. No oil majors placed any bids.

“This fact that this auction even took place is both an insult and an injury, but its result should definitively prove that drilling in the Arctic should be taken off the table forever. Even though this auction was an embarrassment for the Trump administration and anyone arguing that this will raise money for the American public, this is still an injury to the Gwich’in people, who hold the Arctic Refuge sacred, and to the Alaska Native people and wildlife who depend upon the health and integrity of the Refuge for their survival. And it’s an insult to our entire country, by sacrificing and selling off America’s public lands for pennies on the dollar—a pointless use of the incredible Arctic as a piggy bank for polluters. The Arctic Refuge lease sale is a raw deal for the American public, and any development in the Refuge would be a devastating loss for the Gwich’in and the Arctic ecosystem.”

The first sale in 2021 generated less than one percent of projected revenue, while the second in 2025 received zero bids. Republicans have repeatedly tried to use Arctic drilling to help offset tax breaks for the wealthy. Trump’s first billionaire giveaway — the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — mandated lease sales in the Arctic Refuge that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would generate $1.8 billion. Those projections proved wildly inaccurate. The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill repeated the same scheme, requiring more lease sales to pay for tax giveaways to the ultra-wealthy, with the same failed result.

On March 3, 2026, Senator Markey and Congressman Huffman (D-Calif.), along with Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), led 60 members in the House and Senate in condemning the Trump administration’s plans to auction off sacred and sensitive lands within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas companies.

In April 2025, Senator Markey and Representative Huffman reintroduced the Arctic Refuge Protection Act, legislation that would restore critical protections to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by designating the Coastal Plain ecosystem as wilderness under the National Wilderness Preservation System. This legislation would permanently halt any new oil and gas leasing, exploration, development, and drilling on the Coastal Plain, and would safeguard the subsistence rights of the Arctic Indigenous Peoples who depend upon the Arctic Refuge.

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