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BALTIMORE, MD - Attorney General Anthony G. Brown joined a coalition with 13 other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief supporting three lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s decision to authorize an oil and gas leasing program that would maximize development of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
The states have filed the amicus brief in three separate lawsuits filed by Alaska Native villages, communities, and environmental non-profit organizations.
In the brief, the states argue that expansive oil and gas development in an area previously untouched by industrial development will harm our states’ migratory birds and increase greenhouse gas emissions that worsen the devasting impacts of climate change in our states. The coalition states argue that the Bureau of Land Management failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act (Refuge Act) when it conducted a rushed and incomplete environmental review that ignored more environmentally protective alternatives and disregarded legally required standards for public participation and transparency.
“Marylanders are already experiencing persistent droughts, intense storms, and extreme temperatures, consequences of climate change that will only be made worse by oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” said Attorney General Brown. “Our Office is joining this brief because our residents and our wildlife deserve protection from unlawful drilling programs that threaten to make our climate more unstable.”
The Coastal Plain is a 1.6-million-acre national treasure at the heart of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that provides habitat to hundreds of species, including threatened polar bears and caribou. Millions of migratory birds spend the summer on the Coastal Plain breeding and feeding before migrating southward across North America, traveling upwards of 3,000 miles. Populations of tundra swans, black-bellied plovers, and lesser scaup that winter in the Chesapeake Bay rely on these important areas for summer breeding habitat.
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 occur in the coalition states.
The coalition states have a history of fighting to protect the Coastal Plain and prevent damage to these irreplaceable public lands and wildlife. In 2020, a multistate coalition led by Washington and Massachusetts, alongside Alaska Native villages, communities, and environmental non-profits challenged the Trump administration’s 2020 Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program and underlying environmental review. In June 2021, the Secretary of Interior halted all development under the program, identifying multiple “legal deficiencies” and ordered a new environmental review. In 2025, following congressional action, the Trump administration authorized a nearly identical 2025 Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program.
In filing the brief, Attorney General Brown is joined by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
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