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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Trump targets Alaska’s oil and other resources as environmentalists gear up for a fight

by

27 days ago
20250123

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ex­pan­sive ex­ec­u­tive or­der aimed at boost­ing oil and gas drilling, min­ing and log­ging in Alas­ka is be­ing cheered by state po­lit­i­cal lead­ers who see new fos­sil fu­el de­vel­op­ment as crit­i­cal to Alas­ka’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture and crit­i­cized by en­vi­ron­men­tal groups that see the pro­pos­als as wor­ry­ing in the face of a warm­ing cli­mate.

The or­der, signed on Trump’s first day in of­fice Mon­day, is con­sis­tent with a wish list sub­mit­ted by Alas­ka Re­pub­li­can Gov. Mike Dun­leavy short­ly af­ter Trump’s elec­tion. It seeks, among oth­er things, to open to oil and gas drilling an area of the pris­tine Arc­tic Na­tion­al Wildlife Refuge con­sid­ered sa­cred to the In­dige­nous Gwich’in, un­do lim­its im­posed by the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion on drilling ac­tiv­i­ty in the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Re­serve-Alas­ka on the North Slope and re­verse re­stric­tions on log­ging and road-build­ing in a tem­per­ate rain­for­est that pro­vides habi­tat for wolves, bears and salmon.

In many ways, the or­der seeks to re­vert to poli­cies that were in place dur­ing Trump’s first term.

But Trump “just can’t wave a mag­ic wand and make these things hap­pen,” said Coop­er Free­man, Alas­ka di­rec­tor at the Cen­ter for Bi­o­log­i­cal Di­ver­si­ty. En­vi­ron­men­tal laws and rules must be fol­lowed in at­tempts to un­rav­el ex­ist­ing poli­cies, and le­gal chal­lenges to Trump’s plans are vir­tu­al­ly cer­tain, he said.

“We’re ready and look­ing for­ward to the fight of our lives to keep Alas­ka great, wild and abun­dant,” Free­man said.

What’s planned for the Arc­tic Na­tion­al Wildlife Refuge?

The or­der seeks to re­verse a Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion de­ci­sion can­cel­ing sev­en leas­es is­sued as part of the first-ever oil and gas lease sale in the refuge’s coastal plain. Ma­jor oil com­pa­nies didn’t par­tic­i­pate in the sale, held in ear­ly 2021 in the wan­ing days of Trump’s first term. The leas­es went to a state cor­po­ra­tion. Two small com­pa­nies that al­so won leas­es in that sale had ear­li­er giv­en them up.

Trump’s or­der calls for the In­te­ri­or sec­re­tary to “ini­ti­ate ad­di­tion­al leas­ing” and is­sue all per­mits and ease­ments nec­es­sary for oil and gas ex­plo­ration and de­vel­op­ment to oc­cur. Gwich’in lead­ers op­pose drilling on the coastal plain, cit­ing its im­por­tance to a cari­bou herd they re­ly up­on. Lead­ers of the Iñu­pi­aq com­mu­ni­ty of Kak­tovik, which is with­in the refuge, sup­port drilling and have ex­pressed hope their voic­es will be heard in the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion af­ter be­ing frus­trat­ed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

This comes weeks af­ter a sec­ond lease sale, man­dat­ed by a 2017 fed­er­al law, yield­ed no bids. The law re­quired that two lease sales be of­fered by the end of 2024. The state ear­li­er this month sued the In­te­ri­or De­part­ment and fed­er­al of­fi­cials, al­leg­ing among oth­er things that the terms of the re­cent sale were too re­stric­tive.

What do Alas­ka po­lit­i­cal lead­ers say?

Alas­ka lead­ers cheered Trump’s or­der, which was ti­tled, “Un­leash­ing Alas­ka’s Ex­tra­or­di­nary Re­source Po­ten­tial.”

“It is morn­ing again in Alas­ka,” Re­pub­li­can U.S. Sen. Dan Sul­li­van de­clared.

“Pres­i­dent Trump de­liv­ered on his first day in of­fice!” Dun­leavy said on so­cial me­dia. “This is why elec­tions mat­ter.”

Alas­ka has a his­to­ry of fight­ing per­ceived over­reach by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment that af­fects the state’s abil­i­ty to de­vel­op its nat­ur­al re­sources. State lead­ers com­plained dur­ing the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion that ef­forts to fur­ther de­vel­op oil, gas and min­er­als were be­ing un­fair­ly ham­pered, though they al­so scored a ma­jor win with the ap­proval in 2023 of a large oil project known as Wil­low in the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Re­serve-Alas­ka. En­vi­ron­men­tal­ists are fight­ing that ap­proval in court.

Dun­leavy has re­peat­ed­ly ar­gued that de­vel­op­ment of Alas­ka’s vast re­sources are crit­i­cal for its fu­ture, and he’s billed the un­der­ground stor­age of car­bon and car­bon off­set pro­grams as a way to di­ver­si­fy rev­enues while con­tin­u­ing to de­vel­op oil, gas and coal and pur­sue tim­ber pro­grams.

The state faces eco­nom­ic chal­lenges: oil pro­duc­tion, long its lifeblood, is a frac­tion of what it once was, in part due to ag­ing fields, and for more than a decade, more peo­ple have left Alas­ka than have moved here.

What hap­pens now?

Aaron Weiss, deputy di­rec­tor of the con­ser­va­tion group Cen­ter for West­ern Pri­or­i­ties, called Trump’s or­der an “every­thing, every­where, all-at-once or­der” that seeks to un­do mea­sures that in some cas­es it took the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion years to en­act.

“The length of time it would take the In­te­ri­or De­part­ment to ac­com­plish every­thing in that ex­ec­u­tive or­der is at least one term’s worth, maybe two. And even then, you would need the sci­ence on your side when it all comes back. And we know in the case of Alas­ka specif­i­cal­ly, the sci­ence is not on the side of un­lim­it­ed drilling,” he said, point­ing to cli­mate con­cerns and the warm­ing Arc­tic.

Com­mu­ni­ties have ex­pe­ri­enced the im­pacts of cli­mate change, in­clud­ing thin­ning sea ice, coastal ero­sion and thaw­ing per­mafrost that un­der­mines in­fra­struc­ture.

Erik Grafe, an at­tor­ney with the group Earth­jus­tice, called the Arc­tic “the worst place to be ex­pand­ing oil and gas de­vel­op­ment. No place is good be­cause we need to be con­tract­ing and mov­ing to a green econ­o­my and ad­dress­ing the cli­mate cri­sis.”

By BECKY BOHRER

JUNEAU, Alas­ka (AP)


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