No Surprise, She Did it Again! Gleason’s Ruling Imperils Alaska’s Energy Future

August 8, 2023

When then-President Barack Obama named Anchorage’s Sharon Gleason to an open seat in the U.S. District Court in 2012, he could have only hoped she would be a stalwart radical when it came to environmental rulings.  Even then, he would have had a hard time imagining how much damage her decisions would have on the state’s economy, jobs and energy future.

We’ve written before on Gleason being a darling of the eco-left with her rulings against responsible development, and yesterday’s 74-page ruling in favor of the Biden Administration’s shuttering of Congressionally-mandated oil and gas leasing on the Coastal Plain of Alaska’s ANWR area is just another in a long list of them.

Gleason dismissed a suit brought by the State of Alaska and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) against Biden’s order on day one of his Presidency suspending the ANWR leasing program.  Spitting in the face of Congressional authority and Trump-administration approval of the program, the judge decided that further oil and gas development could be stopped with the stroke of a pen from Biden.

Activist judges like Sharon Gleason certainly do a disservice to Americans across the nation.  Her decisions cost Americans jobs, revenues and energy security, while enabling and empowering OPEC, Russia, China and other despot regimes at our nation’s expense.

Here’s hoping the State and AIDEA continue the fight and take the case to further jurisdictions.  Maybe Gleason – as she has before – will be overridden by unbiased, Constitutionally-foundational judges if they do.