Interior Secretary Doug Burgum delivered welcome news to a roomful of Alaska Natives on Sunday evening: The Trump administration will take action to rescind a Biden-era climate rule that locked up millions of acres from future oil and gas development. [emphasis, links added]
Burgum made the unexpected announcement in Utqiagvik, Alaska—America’s northernmost community and home to the Inupiat people—flanked by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, fellow members of President Donald Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council.
At Burgum’s direction, the Interior Department will initiate a formal rulemaking process Monday morning to rescind the regulations.
The action, if eventually finalized, would remove restrictions former president Joe Biden unveiled on Earth Day 2024, blocking development across 13 million acres of federal lands in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve—an area Congress specifically set aside for development decades ago.
The Biden administration went through with the restrictions despite vigorous opposition from Alaska Natives, many of whom were present at the town hall event in Utqiagvik on Sunday evening.
“The three of us have a charge—it’s our jobs in our respective departments to go and execute on unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary potential,” Burgum remarked to applause.
Many of the administration’s energy-related actions thus far have been via executive action, which makes them vulnerable to court injunctions and reversal by future Democratic administrations.
By opting for a formal rulemaking process, Burgum’s approach to the issue could provide more changes to Biden-era actions that conflict with Trump’s agenda. …snip…
“It means they’re listening,” Utqiagvik mayor Asisaun Toovak told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview.
“They are taking the time to come here, 3,000 miles up north, to listen to our Indigenous voices and hear our right to self-determination as an Inupiat people. They’re listening, they’re hearing us, and they’re making a real effort.”
In addition to Toovak, several leaders from Utqiagvik and other communities in the North Slope Borough attended the town hall on Sunday in support of the delegation’s agenda.
“I want to say, in the words of our commander-in-chief, President Donald J. Trump, drill, baby, drill,” exclaimed Charles Lampe, a leader from Kaktovik, Alaska.
While the region is remote, it contains some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the country.
Continued development of those reserves could help supply the rest of the country and allies abroad with much-needed cheap energy while helping to boost the economies of the surrounding impoverished Native villages like Utqiagvik and Kaktovik, which are reliant on such projects for much-needed tax revenue.
That is why Alaska natives overwhelmingly support more oil and gas drilling projects.
The Biden administration ultimately ignored their pleas and instead took the side of powerful environmental groups that argue for more restrictions on development to curb greenhouse gas emissions and protect wildlife.
In doing so, Biden locked up more than 28 million acres of land in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). He also shut down drilling off the coast of northern Alaska.
Read rest at Free Beacon
