Between Joe Biden’s win in November 2020 and his assumption of office later in January ’21, Trump gave Heritage Foundation‘s Project 2025 a trial run: he signed a number of executive orders that included expanding oil drilling in Alaska.
Today, with Project 2025 operatives largely running Trump’s operation, the scheme to plunder Alaska for oil (which analysts say likely run afoul of multiple federal laws) is back on the front burner. Yareth Rosen reports in Alaska Beacon:
The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed opening about 7 million more federally managed acres on Alaska’s North Slope to new oil development, resurrecting a pro-drilling plan proposed in the first Trump administration but never adopted. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released the new draft integrated activity plan for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The plan proposes opening 82% of the 23-million-acre federal land unit on the Western North Slope to oil development; currently, only about half of the reserve is open to development. The National Petroleum Reserve has yielded significant oil discoveries in recent years, most notably the 600-million-barrel Willow field that ConocoPhillips is currently developing. But it also holds important Arctic habitat for migratory birds, caribou and other wildlife, and is used by Indigenous residents for traditional subsistence food-gathering.
Opening up sensitive areas for energy exploration—and dismantling environmental protections—are key demands of Project 2025.
Additionally, Trump’s associates are planning to eliminate protections for the Colville River, a 350-mile-long tributary teeming with wildlife, nesting habitats and historic-fossil deposits.
Aside from allowing leasing and drilling within the lake and on its surrounding areas, the new Trump administration plan proposes eliminating formal protections for the Colville River. The river, which runs along high bluffs, is known for its raptor nesting sites and its rich paleontological resources. Several Cretaceous-era dinosaur species’ fossils have been discovered there, along with species of ancient fish, including the oldest salmonoid in the global fossil record, according to University of Alaska Fairbanks experts. The previous Trump administration’s plan for the National Petroleum Reserve prompted the environmental group American Rivers to list the Colville in 2019 as one of the nation’s most endangered rivers.
As Reuters notes, the oil industry is unlikely to take advantage of this new “opportunity” because a future president could (and likely would, as long as Trump doesn’t install himself forever) overturn the executive order. The action has already drawn a number of legal challenges from environmental groups and others.
Earlier in June, Doug Burgum announced plans to lift environmental regulations on about half of the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
As I like to remind, executive orders are not laws. And something of this magnitude would likely never garner enough support in Congress—which is where lawmaking is supposed to happen.
I say “supposed to” because all the noxious, anti-democratic edicts Donald signed are the only place where gop is doing any “governing” (term used loosely, obviously). Republicans do no work and represent no constituents other than fossil fuel oligarchs, hence this new push to plunder a wildlife habitat for their “Petroligarch” benefactors.
Anyways, SCOTUS’ “Federalist Society 6” are busy making Donald an untouchable monarch and this particularly wretched, anti-all-living-things decree impacts too many stakeholders (filing lawsuits as I type this) for it to have any meaningful impact.
Which is how you know a Republican is responsible: it solves no problems; creates new ones; costs gobs of cash; and it will cause untold amounts of death and destruction.
SOURCES
- Alaska Beacon
- Reuters
- Arctic Today
- Colville River (Wikipedia)
