Trump Interior Reopens Arctic Refuge And 13-Million-Acre Petroleum Reserve To Drilling, Restoring American Right To Auction Oil Leases No One Wants To Buy

The Filing

WASHINGTON. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Thursday signed a Secretarial Order revoking Biden-era protections across the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain and the 13-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, restoring American oil companies' freedom to decline, for a third consecutive presidential term, to bid on federal leases in the Arctic.

The Order, characterized by the Department as "unleashing Alaska's extraordinary resource potential," reopens roughly 16 million acres of Arctic tundra to oil and gas leasing, including the Coastal Plain calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, sea ice used by polar bears, and waters relied upon by walruses and migratory birds. Industry response was immediate, in that there has not yet been one. A 2021 ANWR lease sale held during the first Trump administration received no bids from any major oil company, leaving the state-controlled Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority to acquire most parcels for itself. Those leases were subsequently surrendered.

"This Order restores energy dominance to the American people," Burgum said at a signing ceremony, speaking on behalf of an industry that has, when last asked, declined the opportunity. Asked whether companies would actually pursue Arctic leases this time, a senior Interior official said the question was "premature" and characterized the previous absence of bidding as the product of "regulatory uncertainty," a phrase used here to describe the regulations against drilling there.

The action also rescinds Biden administration limits on the National Petroleum Reserve, a 23-million-acre tract designated by President Harding in 1923 as a strategic petroleum source, on which the federal government has spent the intervening century deciding whether to extract any petroleum. Sources within the administration confirmed that the President personally regards the Arctic as a symbol of American freedom, particularly the freedom to drill in places no one has yet shown interest in drilling.

The Gwich'in people, whose subsistence rests on the Porcupine caribou herd, warned the action threatens a way of life thousands of years old. The Gwich'in were not consulted. Asked whether the President was for or against the caribou, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed only that he had been briefed.

At press time, Secretary Burgum was preparing additional Secretarial Orders reopening lands the industry has expressed no interest in, fulfilling campaign promises to donors who had not requested them.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump, who delivered another signature deregulatory action without securing any incremental American oil production, which was the stated reason for taking it.
§The Trump Organization, whose branded properties continue to benefit from any sustained association between the President and the domestic energy industry.
§Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the former North Dakota governor with longstanding ties to the Bakken oil and gas industry, whose first major Secretarial Order positions him as the administration's principal energy-dominance executor.
§The American Petroleum Institute, which received another priority lobbying deliverable even if its members do not intend to make practical use of it.
§ConocoPhillips, operator of the Willow Project on the western NPR-A, whose adjacent operations benefit from any general reduction in regulatory oversight of the broader Reserve.
§The Alaska Congressional delegation, including Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, whose state political coalitions benefit from any federal leasing activity regardless of whether commercial bids materialize.
§Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state entity that has previously functioned as the bidder of last resort on Arctic leases unwanted by industry.
§The Heritage Foundation, Pacific Legal Foundation, and the broader conservative legal movement, which receive a fresh administrative test case for litigation over the Antiquities Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act.
§The Russian Federation, which benefits any time U.S. environmental protections are publicly weakened and any time U.S. moral standing on Indigenous rights is voluntarily diminished.
§The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and OPEC+, which benefit any time U.S. energy policy is characterized by symbolic gestures rather than incremental production.
§The People's Republic of China, which retains its uncontested global lead in clean-energy supply chains while the United States returns to debating whether to drill in places it has previously chosen not to drill.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment