{"id":2107,"date":"2025-10-24T11:22:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T11:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2107"},"modified":"2025-10-24T11:22:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T11:22:22","slug":"trump-reopens-alaskas-arctic-coastal-plain-to-oil-drilling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2107","title":{"rendered":"Trump Reopens Alaska\u2019s Arctic Coastal Plain to Oil Drilling"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Bloomberg) —<\/span>\u00a0The Trump administration is opening the entire coastal plain of Alaska\u2019s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, reversing a Biden administration decision that put the pristine wilderness area off limits.<\/p>\n

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Thursday the agency was opening the 1.56 million acre of tundra on the state\u2019s North Slope and holding a lease sale this winter in the nearby National Petroleum Reserve. It\u2019s the latest move President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to boost domestic fossil fuel production.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis land should and will be supporting responsible oil and gas leasing,\u201d Burgum said during an event at the Interior Department\u2019s headquarters in Washington Thursday.<\/p>\n

The refuge\u2019s coastal plain is estimated to hold billions of barrels of crude. But many oil companies have been reluctant to target the area, given the high costs. Environmentalists and native Alaskans argue oil development in the region risks imperiling arctic foxes, polar bears and caribou.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrilling in the Arctic Refuge is reckless,\u201d Bobby McEnaney, a director with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. \u201cThe market has said no \u2014 banks and insurers won\u2019t back it, lease sales flopped, and taxpayers are left holding the bag. Public lands must serve people, wildlife, and a livable climate\u2014not host a fire sale for fossil fuel companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: Biden to Cancel Arctic Oil Drilling Rights Sold by Trump<\/p>\n

During Trump\u2019s first term, Congress lifted a 40-year-old ban on energy development in the refuge in 2017, mandating lease sales.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden canceled leases sold in 2021 and barred exploration in more than half of the nearby National Petroleum Reserve.<\/p>\n

Not a single company opted to bid in two additional lease sales in the region mandated by Congress and held just days before President Joe Biden left office. Oil industry representatives and Alaska officials, however, complained the lease sale\u2019s structure discouraged bidding from the start.<\/p>\n

The Interior Department also said Thursday it had brokered a land-exchange deal that would allow construction of a contentious road through southwestern Alaska\u2019s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.<\/p>\n

(Adds details about planned lease sale in second paragraph, road construction in last paragraph.)<\/p>\n

\u00a92025 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Bloomberg) —\u00a0The Trump administration is opening the entire coastal plain of Alaska\u2019s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2109,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions\/2109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}