The Trump administration has accelerated its efforts to open up Alaska for fossil fuel development, taking a crucial step toward deciding what plots of land will be made available for oil and gas leasing.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is publishing a call for nominations and comments in the Federal Register this week, requesting feedback on what areas in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska should be made available in an oil and gas lease sale this coming winter.
The lease sale is expected to be the first in the region since 2019 and is directed to take place under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump this summer.
NPR-A, a roughly 23 million-acre area in Alaska’s North Slope Borough, was first set aside by President Warren Harding in 1923 as an emergency oil supply for the U.S. Navy. Jurisdiction of the land was transferred to the Interior Department in the 1970s, opening it up to oil and gas leasing.
While the NPR-A has been open for oil and gas development for decades, Republicans have repeatedly criticized that only around 1.6 million acres have been leased in the region.
Amid urging from conservationists, environmentalists, and climate activists, former President Joe Biden sought to further block fossil fuel leasing in Northern Alaska through a number of rules and regulations.
One of these rules, issued by BLM in April of last year, was meant to keep 13 million acres of the NPR-A off-limits to drilling operations to conserve land, environment, and habitats of wildlife, such as polar bears, caribou, and thousands of migratory birds.
The Trump administration has blasted these regulations as government overreach, claiming the previous administration limited energy production in the state.
The Interior Department proposed rescinding this rule in June and accepted public comments on the matter through the beginning of August. The agency will likely issue a final rule rolling it back before the December lease sale takes place.
In June, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed the Biden-era rule exceeded the agency’s statutory authority under the Naval Petroleum Reserve Production Act of 1976, conflicted with the act’s purpose, and imposed barriers to energy development.
“We’re restoring the balance and putting our energy future back on track,” Burgum said at the time.
Under the big, beautiful bill, BLM has been directed to hold no fewer than five lease sales in the NPR-A by 2035. As each sale is required to make at least 4 million acres available, this would make nearly the entire reserve open for oil and gas exploration and drilling.
TRUMP MOVES TO WALK BACK BIDEN RESTRICTIONS ON OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT IN ALASKA
For this first lease sale, interested parties have until Nov. 21 to nominate certain tracts of land.
“Congress directed a program of expeditious leasing and development in the NPR-A to support America’s energy independence, and that is more important today than ever,” BLM Alaska State Director Kevin Pendergast said in a statement. “This lease sale gets us back on track toward further exploration and development in the reserve, as Congress envisioned.”
