Trump moves to open protected Arctic lands in Alaska to oil drilling
The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed opening about 7 million more federally managed acres on Alaska’s North Slope to new oil development, resurrecting a pro-drilling plan proposed in the first Trump administration but never adopted.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released the new draft integrated activity plan for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The plan proposes opening 82% of the 23-million-acre federal land unit on the Western North Slope to oil development; currently, only about half of the reserve is open to development.
The National Petroleum Reserve has yielded significant oil discoveries in recent years, most notably the 600-million-barrel Willow field that ConocoPhillips is currently developing. But it also holds important Arctic habitat for migratory birds, caribou and other wildlife, and is used by Indigenous residents for traditional subsistence food-gathering.
Under the existing management plan, a little over 11.7 million acres are open for leasing; under the proposed plan, more than 18.5 million acres would be available for leasing.
“This plan is about creating more jobs for Americans, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and tapping into the immense energy resources the National Petroleum Reserve was created to deliver,” Adam Suess, acting assistant secretary for lands and minerals management at the Department of the Interior, said in a statement. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we’re cutting red tape and restoring commonsense policies that ensure responsible development and good stewardship of our public lands.”
In a post on the social media site X, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the administration “is unleashing American energy like never before” and that the plan is “delivering on our promise of ending Biden’s disastrous regulatory overreach.”
The draft proposal is available for a 14-day public review.
Like the previous Trump administration’s plan for the reserve, the new plan would replace a 2013 integrated activity plan adopted by the Obama administration. That Obama framework, still in effect, was the first ever management plan for the entire reserve. It included protections for specific areas deemed to be ecologically and culturally important.
As with the first Trump administration’s plan, the new plan would open the entire Teshekpuk Lake area to oil development. The lake, the largest on the North Slope, and the wetlands around it are considered to hold world-class habitat for migratory birds, as well as key habitat for the Teshekpuk caribou herd that spends the entire year on the North Slope, and other wildlife.
The lake and its adjacent lands have had formal protections from development since 1977, when the Department of the Interior designed the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area. The special area was later expanded in the Obama administration’s integrated activity plan.
Aside from allowing leasing and drilling within the lake and on its surrounding areas, the new Trump administration plan proposes eliminating formal protections for the Colville River. The river, which runs along high bluffs, is known for its raptor nesting sites and its rich paleontological resources. Several Cretaceous-era dinosaur species’ fossils have been discovered there, along with species of ancient fish, including the oldest salmonoid in the global fossil record, according to University of Alaska Fairbanks experts.
The previous Trump administration’s plan for the National Petroleum Reserve prompted the environmental group American Rivers to list the Colville in 2019 as one of the nation’s most endangered rivers.
Environmentalists criticized the new plan.
“This is another step in the Trump administration’s reckless effort to sell out our most valuable national public lands to the oil industry in the midst of the climate crisis,” Matt Jackson, senior manager for Alaska at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement.
“They are scrapping a plan that is based on a robust body of science and traditional ecological knowledge that protects high-value wildlife habitat and subsistence resources that are vital to local Indigenous communities across Alaska, and replacing it with a strategy that puts corporate greed ahead of people.”
The new Trump administration has already started the process of discarding other environmental protections in the reserve. President Donald Trump, in an Inauguration Day executive order, directed Interior to overturn Biden administration policies that allowed for expansion of the reserve’s special areas, among other limits to oil development.
Neither the first Trump administration nor the Biden administration held any lease sales in the reserve. Under the Obama administration, the policy was to hold annual lease sales in that area. The last National Petroleum Reserve lease sale was held in 2016.
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