‘This administration is breaking the law’: WA Attorney General Nick Brown challenges Trump’s Alaska oil, gas plan

Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown is leading a coalition of 13 other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief that supports three lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s choice to authorize an oil and gas program in Alaska.

The program would reportedly maximize the development of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Washington State Office of the Attorney General (AG) announced.

The 13 states filed the brief in three separate lawsuits filed by Alaska Native villages, communities, and environmental non-profit organizations.

Coalition argues the drilling program would harm wildlife, worsen climate change

Washington’s amicus brief argues “expansive, maximalist oil and gas development” within an area that has been previously untouched by industrial development would harm the states’ migrating birds and increase greenhouse gas emissions, worsening the impacts of climate change.

The coalition in general argues the Bureau of Land Management rushed and failed to complete an environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Secretary of the Interior failed to comply with the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act by ignoring other environmentally protective alternatives and disregarding legally required standards for public participation and transparency.

“Once again, this administration is breaking the law to prop up the fossil fuel industry, with no regard for the costs to our natural world,” Brown said. “The interests of oil and gas are not above the interests of the American people and our extraordinary ecology.”

The AG’s Office noted the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the nation’s largest refuge, with the Coastal Plain spanning 1.6 million acres and providing a habitat for hundreds of species, such as polar bears and caribou.

“Millions of migratory birds spend the summer on the Coastal Plain breeding and feeding before migrating southward across North America, including Washington, travelling upwards of 3,000 miles,” the AG’s Office stated. “These birds are an integral part of the coalition states’ ecosystems. In many cases, they are protected as species of concern under state law. They also provide a significant economic benefit from birdwatching and hunting that occurs in the coalition states.”

Nearly identical program was halted in 2021 over ‘legal deficiencies’

The AG’s Office noted similar occurrences when many of the coalition states fought a similar battle to protect the Coastal Plain and prevent damage to the public land and wildlife.

In 2020, a multi-state coalition led by Washington and Massachusetts, among others, challenged the Trump administration’s 2020 Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program and underlying environmental review. Later in 2021, the Secretary of the Interior stopped all development under the program after identifying several “legal deficiencies” and ordered a new environmental review.

In 2025, after congressional action intervened, the Trump administration authorized a “nearly identical” 2025 Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program.

“This program is one of a series of actions that the federal administration has taken to dramatically increase oil and gas drilling in ecologically sensitive areas of Alaska at the expense of our environment, resulting in devastating harm to our state’s wildlife and climate,” the attorney general’s office stated.

AG Brown is joined by several attorneys general on the amicus brief, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

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