"Knik Arm Services"

Knik Arm Services owner Mark Graber said it no longer felt worth it to hold onto the lease amid the legal battles.

The state won 10-year oil leases for nine pieces of land by submitting the minimum offer: $25 an acre. But drilling for oil in the refuge is expensive, and it faces an aggressive opposition campaign.

One of the Trump administration’s biggest energy initiatives suffered a stunning setback Wednesday, as a decades-long push to drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ended with a lease sale that attracted just three bidders — one of which was the state of Alaska itself.