Rescission of the Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Regulations

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Land Management</SUBAGY> <CFR>43 CFR Part 2360</CFR> <DEPDOC>[PO #4820000251; Order #02412-014-004-047181.0]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1004-AF02</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescission of the Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Land Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is proposing to rescind the “Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska” final rule, issued on May 7, 2024. We solicit comment on all aspects of this proposed rule. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by August 4, 2025. The BLM is not obligated to consider any comments received after this date in making its decision on the final rule. <E T="03">Information Collection Requirements:</E> This proposed rule includes revised and new information-collection requirements that must be approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). If you wish to comment on the information-collection requirements, please note that those comments should be sent directly to OMB. OMB is required to make a decision concerning the collection of information contained in this proposed rule between 30 and 60 days after publication of this document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Therefore, a comment to the OMB on the proposed information-collection revisions is best assured of being given full consideration if the OMB receives it by July 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Mail, Personal, or Messenger Delivery: U.S. Department of the Interior, Director (630), Bureau of Land Management, 1849 C St. NW, Room 5646, Washington, DC 20240, Attention: 1004-AF02. <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the Searchbox, enter “BLM-2025-0002” and click the “Search” button. Follow the instructions at this website. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kyle Moorman, Chief, Division of Regulatory Affairs, telephone: 202-208-6913, email: <E T="03">kmoorman@blm.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. For a summary of the proposed rule, please see the proposed rule summary document in docket BLM-2025-0002 on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">For Comments on Information—Collection Activities</HD> <E T="03">Information-Collection Requirements:</E> Written comments and suggestions on the information-collection requirements should be submitted by the date specified earlier in <E T="02">DATES</E> to <E T="03">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find this specific information-collection by selecting “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. If you submit comments on these information-collection burdens, you should provide the BLM with a copy at one of the addresses shown earlier in this section so that we can summarize all written comments and address them in the final rulemaking. Please indicate “Attention: Paperwork Reduction Act Comments (OMB Control Number 1004-0221).” Comments not pertaining to the proposed rule's information-collection burdens should not be submitted to OMB. The BLM is not obligated to consider or include in the Administrative Record for the final rule any comments that are improperly directed to OMB. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The BLM's governing regulations for management of surface resources within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (the Reserve or NPR-A) are located at 43 CFR part 2360. These regulations were previously updated by a final rule “Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska,” 89 FR 38712 (May 7, 2024), with an effective date of June 6, 2024 (the 2024 Rule). The BLM has concluded that the 2024 Rule conflicts with and exceeds its statutory authority under the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976, Public Law 94-258 (90 Stat. 303; 42 U.S.C. 6501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (NPRPA), undermines the purpose that Act, and is inconsistent with National energy policy, and the BLM is therefore proposing to rescind the 2024 rule and revert to the regulations that were in place prior to May 7, 2024. Designated by President Warren G. Harding in 1923 as Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4, in Executive Order (E.O.) 3797-A, the Reserve is one of several naval petroleum reserves established on public land in the shadow of World War I as an emergency oil reserve for the U.S. Navy. The Reserve, which is nearly the size of the State of Indiana, extends from the north slope of the Brooks Range to the Arctic Coast encompassing approximately 23 million acres of public land. Various exploratory programs by the Navy were undertaken in the Reserve between 1944 to 1953, resulting in the discovery of two small oil fields (Simpson and Umiat), one prospective oil field (Fish Creek), a gas field (South Barrow), and four prospective gas fields (Meade, Square Lake, Titaluk, and Wolf Creek). The Navy also pioneered numerous methods for oil exploration in the Arctic and collected a significant amount of scientific information regarding northern Alaska. Motivated by private industry's 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the increasing price of oil due to the embargo that started in 1973, Congress passed NPRPA in 1976, which transferred administrative jurisdiction over the Reserve from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of the Interior and redesignated the “Naval Petroleum Reserve Numbered 4, Alaska” as the “National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.” At the time the NPRPA was enacted, the Reserve remained “largely unexplored and almost completely undeveloped.” H.R. Rep. No. 94-156, at 3 (1975). Between 1974 and 1977, the Navy drilled seven test wells in the northeast corner of the Reserve. These early explorations were significant undertakings that involved public funds, with a single test well costing the Federal Government approximately $100 million. They were also carried out with now-outdated technologies that left behind unsightly reminders of human activities, including tracks across the tundra, excavated rill sites, installation of pilings, and open reserve pits. Congress recognized that accelerating exploration of the Reserve was “vital to the national interest to assess the amount and location of the potential oil and gas available in the . . . Reserve,” particularly in light of the national need for energy independence, while acknowledging that the “wildlife and many other values [in the Reserve] will have to be considered” and determined that “the Secretary of the Interior is best qualified to make judgments regarding these other values.” H.R. Rep. No. 94-81, at 8 (1975). As a result, the NPRPA directs the Secretary of the Interior to commence petroleum exploration within the Reserve as soon as the administration of the Reserve is transferred to the Interior Department, the development of which needs to be regulated in “a manner consistent with the total energy needs of the Nation,” while authorizing the Secretary to “promulgate such rules and regulations as he deems necessary and appropriate for the protection of [environmental, fish and wildlife, and historical or scenic values] within the reserve.” 42 U.S.C. 6503(b), 6504(d). The NPRPA further directs the Secretary to “assure the maximum protection of areas containing significant subsistence, recreational, fish and wildlife, or historical or scenic value, as determined by the Secretary, but only insofar as that protection is consistent with the requirements of [the NPRPA] for the exploration of the reserve.” 42 U.S.C. 6504(b). Soon thereafter, the BLM promulgated regulations to govern management and protection of surface resources in the Reserve that implement the direction in the NPRPA. In 1979, the BLM completed a comprehensive “Study of the Reserve,” as required by the NPRPA, which determined the best overall procedures to be used in the development, production, transportation, and distribution of petroleum reserves in the reserve, the alternatives to those procedures, and the environmental consequences and submitted the results of that study to Congress. In response, Congress amended the NPRPA through the Department of the Interior Appropriations Act, Fiscal Year 1981, which directed the Secretary to “conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas” in the Reserve, while “provid[ing] for such conditions, restrictions, and prohibitions as the Secretary deems necessary or appropriate to mitigate reasonably foreseeable and significantly adverse effects on . . . surface resources . . . .” Public Law 96-514, tit. I, 94 Stat. 2957, 2964 (1980). The Fiscal Year 1981 Appropriations Act also exempted the Reserve from the requirement to prepare land use plans under section 202 of FLPMA. <E T="03">Id.</E> Combined with the original direction in the NPRPA, the Fiscal Year 1981 Appropriations Act's amendments clarify that the Congress intended to dedicate management of the Reserve to the exploration and production of oil and gas in the NPR-A, while taking into consideration the need to protect surface resource values. <E T="03">Id.</E> Further, because management of the NPR-A is expressly exempted from FLPMA section 202 by statute, the BLM is not required to manage the area subject to multiple use and sustained yield because it is subject to the dominant uses outlined i ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 43k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━