A sweeping executive order signed by President Donald Trump during the first hours of his second term aims to boost Alaska’s natural resource industry by reversing environmental protections that limit oil and gas extraction, logging, and other development projects across the state. [emphasis, links added]
The order was one of dozens signed by Trump following his inauguration Monday. Another order signed earlier in the day reversed executive actions taken by former President Joe Biden during his presidency, removing restrictions on oil development in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea.
Trump’s broad order, titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” follows a request from Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy for swift action reforming the federal government offices and policies that oversee Alaska’s resource development industry.
The policy changes were also championed by Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation.
Trump’s order aims to reshape federal policy so that the country “fully avail(s) itself of Alaska’s vast lands and resources.”
The order proceeds to lay out various provisions that aim to smooth the path toward more drilling for oil and gas; more logging; more mining; and more hunting on federal lands.
The order instructs agency heads across the federal government to revoke, rescind, or revise regulations that are inconsistent with resource development in Alaska, including most of those issued by Biden when he was in office.
In effect, many of the provisions in the order take federal policies back to where they were in January 2021, when Trump was last in office.
• The order revokes Biden’s actions that halted oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Trump had led a move to allow oil and gas exploration in the refuge during his first term, only for it to be reversed by Biden.
• Trump also ordered the denial of a request that had been considered by the Biden administration to establish a sacred Indigenous site in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• The order rescinds Biden’s rejection of a right-of-way permit to build a contentious 200-mile road through wilderness to the Ambler mining district in Northwest Alaska.
• The order seeks to again repeal the ‘Roadless Rule’ that is meant to limit logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. That’s an action that Trump took during his first term, which Biden then reversed.
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Sen. Dan Sullivan said in a statement that Alaska under Biden “suffered under an unrelenting assault” and that Trump’s order and promised policies “will put Alaskans back in the driver’s seat of our state’s destiny” by advancing resource development projects.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski — who has often criticized Trump even as she aligned with him on energy policies — celebrated the action.
“President Trump is picking up right where he left off, reversing years of damaging decisions and prioritizing Alaska’s unrivaled opportunities for responsible energy and mineral development,” Murkowski said in a statement.
Alaska is unleashed! On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order recognizing Alaska as a true energy warehouse, paving the way for unprecedented opportunities in resource development and energy independence. Read the Executive Order:…
— Governor Mike Dunleavy (@GovDunleavy) January 21, 2025
Dunleavy and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, the newest member of Alaska’s congressional delegation, both welcomed Trump’s executive order.
In a video filmed inside the Capitol, where Trump’s inauguration ceremony took place, Begich said before the executive order was signed that he was “excited to take these next steps to open Alaska for the benefit of Alaskans and for our entire nation.”
Read full post at Anchorage Daily News
