Gov. Sean Parnell is trying to knock down whatever federal moratorium there may be on offshore drilling in the Arctic. His administration filed a lawsuit Thursday morning asking a court to vacate any moratorium involving Alaska.

Whether that moratorium exists is unclear, and environmental groups who have successfully blocked some drilling plans were quick to call Parnell's actions political grandstanding.

Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, told reporters at a press conference in Anchorage two weeks ago that there is no Arctic moratorium. His boss, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was less clear at a press conference last week, saying there is in essence an Arctic moratorium because while Alaska drilling may not be mentioned specifically in the federal ban on offshore drilling, Salazar had decided to hold off on authorizing any new drilling until more reviews are done. The Interior Department has said the moratorium applies only to deep water drilling, which would seem to exclude drilling operations in shallower Arctic waters.

Both U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich have tried to clear up the question of whether a moratorium exists and complained about the confusion and lack of approval for Arctic drilling to Bromwich at the recent offshore drilling forum here.

Parnell and state Attorney General Dan Sullivan told reporters Thursday that whether there is an actual moratorium or Alaska is being affected by the ban on deepwater drilling put in place by the federal government following the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the situation in Alaska needs to be cleared up. They are seeking to do that through legal means, alleging that the Department of Interior did not follow federal law in imposing any slowdown in Alaska.

At stake are thousands of jobs as well as the state's significance as an energy supplier for the rest of the country, Parnell said, citing in particular Shell's inability to carry out drilling operations this summer that cost about 600 jobs.

"It's about jobs, it's about our families, it's about our opportunity to create a future here," Parnell said.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, contends that the government violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and other laws Act by failing to notify the state and get input from state officials before putting a moratorium affecting Alaska in place. The suit contends there is no written record of any kind regarding a prohibition on Alaska drilling.

Moreover, Parnell and Sullivan worry that Alaska may get left behind in any decision to lift the Gulf moratorium, which is set to expire in November, if the state doesn't clear this up. "We just got sucked into it because of what happened in the Gulf," Sullivan said.

They said the timing of the lawsuit, coming in the midst of Parnell's bid for the governor's office, is based on comments Salazar made to the press last week. It wasn't until then, they said, that Salazar had definitively described the ban on Alaska drilling as part of the moratorium.

Parnell said he had tried to meet with Salazar last week but the secretary refused to meet with him. Salazar did hold public events in Barrow and Anchorage, which the governor did not attend.

Environmentalists, who have been challenging the federal government's process for selling leases and approving permits in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, say the lawsuit is challenging something that doesn't exist. They say Shell was blocked from drilling by court rulings on Chukchi Sea leases, and was not caught up in any Gulf-related moratorium.

"It seems like a hollow political stunt," said Rebecca Noblin of the Center for Biological Diversity. "There have already been a number of legal challenges to Arctic drilling and a legal cloud over this drilling already."

"I think the state is trying to make a lot out of this word 'moratorium,' and trying to make it this big surprise announcement that stopped drilling in the arctic," she said. "But in truth it was these lawsuits that struck it down, so there is no legal basis for drilling in the Arctic."