US: Groups drop challenge to ConocoPhillips drilling in Alaska

Environmental and tribal groups have dropped their legal challenge to federal government approval of ConocoPhillips’ winter seismic and exploration drilling programme in Alaska.

On 26 November, the Bureau of Land Management approved a one-year exploration programme by the company ConocoPhillips in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, following the administration's revocation of a ban on drilling and mining in the ecologically sensitive area.

Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, the Center for Biological Diversity and The Wilderness Society, represented by Earthjustice, argued that the bureau illegally approved the project by failing to meet its obligation to address and try to prevent the serious harm this exploratory work would cause to the tundra, the Teshekpuk caribou herd, and to subsistence resources important to Alaska Native communities - compounding impacts from climate change.

Earlier this year, a court rejected their request for a preliminary injunction halting the project saying they did not have a fair chance of success on the merits. They have now dropped the suit altogether.