(Headline USA) President-elect Donald Trump promised repeatedly during his campaign to expand oil drilling in the U.S., which is good news for political leaders in Alaska, where oil is the economic lifeblood and many felt the Biden administration has obstructed efforts to boost the state’s diminished production.
Opening the coastal plain to drilling has been a longtime goal for members of Alaska’s congressional delegation. In 2017, they added language to a tax bill mandating two oil and gas lease sales by late 2024.
The first sale took place in the waning days of the last Trump administration, but President Joe Biden quickly called on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to review the leasing program.
That led to the cancelation of seven leases that had been acquired by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state corporation. Smaller companies gave up two other leases. Litigation is pending over the canceled leases.
Oil is vital to the economic wellbeing of North Slope communities, said Nagruk Harcharek, president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a nonprofit advocacy group whose members include leaders from that region. Responsible development has long coexisted with subsistence lifestyles, he said.
In a video posted on X by Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Trump said he would work to ensure a natural gas pipeline project long sought by state political leaders is built.
While voters “might not have been head over heels” for Trump, “they appreciated that his policies, when they come to resource development, are clearly policies that work to benefit an economy like Alaska’s,” Trump critic U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told reporters.
“So I would anticipate that we would see, again, a return to greater economic opportunities through resource development,” she said.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
