The state of Alaska is suing the federal government over the Department of Interior’s (DOI) alleged “unlawful detour” in restricting oil and gas lease auctions to about 400,000 “impracticable to develop” acres within the 19.6-million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor filed the lawsuit on Jan. 7 in anticipation of the DOI’s Jan. 8 announcement that the Bureau of Land Management had received “no interest” from oil companies in bidding for leases within the ANWR’s coastal plain. Alaska maintains that by restricting leases to 400,000 acres, the administration violated the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which required the DOI to conduct two lease auctions within Section 1002—a 1.5-million acre expanse opened for potential oil and gas development by Congress in 1980….