One of the major issues that President Trump ran on in the 2024 election was energy. “Drill, baby, drill” was the motto (even if Trump did borrow it from a famous Alaskan), and when he was back in office, the president set about putting our energy policy to rights.
When you’re talking energy and mineral resources, you have to talk about Alaska. In the energy front, much of our development is and will be on the North Slope. On Monday, several key Trump administration members visited “the Slope” to see things for themselves.
Three Trump Cabinet members began a tour at a key point of operations at a prolific oil field near the Arctic Ocean in Alaska on Monday, part of a multiday trip aimed at highlighting President Donald Trump’s push to expand oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in the state.
The arrival of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin at Deadhorse came hours after Burgum’s agency said it would follow through with plans to repeal Biden-era restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in portions of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
The petroleum reserve is west of Deadhorse, which is located at Prudhoe Bay at the starting point for the nearly 50-year-old, 800-mile (1,287-kilometer) Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
It seems they won’t be the only visitors to the Great Land. The Trump administration has proposed a new pipeline, a natural gas pipeline, which has several Pacific nations very interested indeed.
Government and industry representatives from several Asian countries also were expected to participate in a portion of the U.S. officials’ trip, as Trump has focused renewed attention on a massive, proposed natural gas pipeline project that Alaska officials have sought for decades as a way to provide gas to residents and overseas markets. The project has struggled to gain traction amid cost and other concerns, and even some state lawmakers remain skeptical it will come to fruition.
Wright on Monday said the gas line could become the “big, beautiful twin” to the oil pipeline. This followed comments by Burgum a day earlier that the gas project carries potential national security benefits if the U.S. can sell liquefied natural gas to allies in Asia.
Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Governor Mike Dunleavy were also in attendance.
See Also: What We Know So Far About Trump’s Proposed Big, Beautiful New Alaska Pipeline
Drill, Baby, Drill: Alaska Native Tribes Applaud Trump Admin’s Moves to Open North Slope Oil Fields
Roughly 60 percent of Alaska is controlled by the federal government. While the Great Land is a literal treasure trove, not just of oil and gas but gold, copper, tin, and rare-earth metals, for decades, Washington has treated Alaska like a huge national park. Those days would seem to be ending. Ramping up extraction in the North Slope yields benefits beyond just America’s energy portfolio; it also brings good-paying jobs that the Native communities of the far north depend on, in a place where there are few, if any, other options.
Environmental activists will surely oppose any such development. When the Biden administration was in place and the autopen was humming along, they had an ally in the White House (the autopen, not Joe, who didn’t understand much that was going on). That’s changed now. Alaska’s reserves aren’t doing anyone any good sitting in the ground, and now, at last, we have an administration that understands that. This will be good for Alaska and good for the nation.
Drill, baby, drill!
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