(May 6, 2024, 1:50 PM EDT) -- ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Following a ruling by a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that transferred a dispute over federal hydraulic fracturing leases to federal court in Alaska, a state fracking agency on May 3 filed an opening brief in support of vacating a lease cancellation decision, arguing that when the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) canceled its leases, it “failed to recognize that a purported violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (‘NEPA’) cannot in any circumstance be the basis for rescinding a program step that is statutorily-mandated . . . even if such a NEPA violation might be a basis for pausing the discretionary aspects of implementation of the same program.”...