After being inaugurated for his second term on Jan. 20, President Trump released a flurry of executive actions. He set a new Day 1 record with 42 in total, many of which follow his “Drill, Baby, Drill” agenda.

With his executive order, “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” Trump pledged to re-open even more Alaskan lands to oil and gas extraction than during his first term.

Alaska has long been a battleground between conservation and resource development, and Trump’s executive action to open the Alaska wilderness to more drilling and industrial development makes clear that those fighting to preserve Alaska’s unique landscape, wildlife, and heritage face a monumental task over the next four years.  

“The executive order is a wish list of every devastating extraction project the Trump Administration could think of,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It amounts to a massive corporate grab of Alaskan resources that would devastate fish and wildlife and intact ecosystems that still exist from the Arctic to the Tongass.”

Freeman said that while Trump can’t just wave his magic wand and make the Arctic a more economically appealing place for companies to drill or build a long-sought Alaskan liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal, Trump’s threats should be taken seriously.  

The executive order seeks to enhance the development of Alaska's natural resources by reversing previous federal restrictions, promoting energy projects, and streamlining regulatory processes. Specifically, it calls for expediting the permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska and prioritizing development of Alaska’s LNG potential.

The proposed Alaska LNG project, which includes a gas treatment plant, an 800-mile pipeline, and an LNG export terminal, could deliver on average about 3.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day to the international market.

Although the language in the executive order is vague, the Alaska congressional delegation has been advocating for using Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds to finance the $44 billion project. Although the IRA was meant to combat climate change, LNG terminals do the opposite by exporting a fossil fuel that releases greenhouse gases when burned.

Costs and the huge construction challenges of building in the Arctic have stymied the development of the Alaska LNG project for over a decade. But early in January, a New York-based company pursuing LNG export projects, called the Glenfarne Group, announced a deal with the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation to build the $44 billion Alaska LNG project.

“Now that Trump and his cronies are in control of Department of Energy loan program, they could theoretically subsidize this boondoggle into existence,” said Raena Garcia, senior energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth.  

Hallie Templeton, legal director at Friends of the Earth, said if Trump is successful, it would cause significant environmental harm throughout the state.

“It aims to open as much of Alaska as possible to the oil and gas industry, from exploration and development to actual drilling and extraction,” she said. “We suspect it could also be used to pave the way for a revival of Pebble Mine, the proposed metals mine in Southwest Alaska that threatens one of the last remaining wild salmon populations in the world.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) praised Trump’s Alaska executive order for “reversing years of damaging decisions and prioritizing Alaska’s unrivaled opportunities for responsible energy and mineral development.”

“Alaska is the blue chip in the United States’ energy portfolio, and I thank President Trump for helping us capitalize on our resources,” she said.  

Alaska’s Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy also lent his support to the executive order. In mid-November, Dunleavy sent a letter to then president-elect Trump outlining his state’s priorities for the federal transition. The letter accused the Biden administration of destroying economic opportunity in Alaska and requested the removal of restrictions on oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve.

In April 2024, the Biden Administration restricted new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, aiming to protect sensitive areas and wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as climate change continues to warm the Arctic.  

In his final days in office, Biden’s interior department took further action aimed at preserving Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas development and protecting fish and wildlife that provide food for Alaska Native people.

Even without these orders in place, the oil and gas industry has largely withdrawn from new Arctic extraction projects due to high costs and public image problems.  A congressionally mandated oil and gas drilling lease auction in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 8 received no bids from energy companies.

Then-Acting Deputy Interior Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said the lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge “reflects what we and they have known all along – there are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling.”

The Gwich'in Steering Committee, speaking for the Gwich'in Nation of Alaska and Canada, echoed Daniel-Davis’s sentiments regarding the failed lease, saying it "clearly demonstrates that even oil companies recognize what we have known all along: drilling in the Arctic Refuge is not worth the economic risk and liability that results from development on sacred lands without the consent of Indigenous Peoples."

In his final days in office, Biden also issued a ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling in most federal waters, including areas off the coast of northern Alaska, as part of a broader effort to address climate change and protect coastal ecosystems. Trump vowed to undo this offshore drilling ban and specifically addressed it in a separate executive order.  

President Biden’s environmental track record in Alaska is far from untarnished. While he canceled some leases and moved to restrict some areas in the Arctic from energy exploration, he also approved the huge Willow oil-drilling project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope, which drew broad environmental condemnation.  

Philip Wight, an energy and environmental historian at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said the Biden administration in general ensured ample access to fossil fuel resources on public lands throughout Alaska.

“Despite vociferous rhetoric claiming that the Biden Administration was intent on keeping Alaskan oil in the ground, evidence from the past four years demonstrates the opposite,” he said.

Wight said the Trump Administration is trying to revive Alaska’s fossil energy fortunes and trying to make “Alaska Great Again” like the oil boom of 1979-1983.  

“But the world has changed,” he said. “The center of gravity of the oil industry is no longer in Alaska, it’s in the Permian Basin [in Texas and New Mexico] and lower 48 shale plays. The government can offer a lot of subsidies and acreage for lease, but it can’t turn back time or force oil majors to invest in a risky resource frontier.” 

Lead photo: Photo by Sward85 on iStockphoto.