Earthjustice Statement: Day One Agenda from the Trump Administration Prioritizes Extractive Industries Above All Else in Alaska

January 20, 2025

Earthjustice Statement: Day One Agenda from the Trump Administration Prioritizes Extractive Industries Above All Else in Alaska

Earthjustice will continue to work with clients and partners to protect Alaska's public lands and hasten the clean energy transition to build a vibrant and thriving state

Contacts

Becca Bowe, Earthjustice, [email protected], (415) 217-2093

Elizabeth Manning, Earthjustice, [email protected], 907-277-2555

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA (Dena'ina lands) -

As expected, in addition to dozens of other executive orders on wide ranging topics, President Trump's administration issued several orders today detailing a destructive agenda for Alaska and its communities. The orders are aimed at dismantling public land protections and other critical environmental safeguards to increase fossil fuel drilling, logging, mining, roadbuilding and other extractive ventures throughout Alaska.

The Trump administration's policy wish list for Alaska was delivered in an Alaska-specific executive order, as requested by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and embedded in other executive orders, including one that repealed more than 78 orders issued by Biden administration. The goal of the Trump administration is to undo as many environmental and subsistence use protections enacted by President Biden and his administration as possible, while advancing new measures to open additional Alaska lands for unsustainable resource extraction and loosening regulations in favor of industry.

"Alaska is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet, a trend that is wreaking havoc on communities, ecosystems, fish, wildlife, and ways of life that depend on healthy lands and waters," said Carole Holley, Earthjustice's managing attorney for the Alaska Office. "That reality requires us to create economic opportunities that respect the lands and people of Alaska and benefit all. The Trump administration's agenda for Alaska would destroy valuable habitats and subsistence hunting and fishing grounds while furthering the climate crisis. Earthjustice and its clients will not stand idly by while Trump once again forces a harmful industry-driven agenda on our state for political gain and the benefit of a wealthy few."

The Western Arctic, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tongass National Forest are a few of the public lands under attack in the new administration's agenda. Also squarely in the crosshairs are measures enacted under consultation with Alaska Native tribes intended to protect critical subsistence resources, cultural practices, and traditional ways of life. President Trump also said his administration would rename Denali, North America's largest peak, to Mt. McKinley. This proposal dismisses the overwhelming support in Alaska (including from Sen. Lisa Murkowski and other members of the Alaska delegation) for keeping the name Denali, which translates to "the High One" or "the Great One" from the Koyukon Athabascan people who inhabited the area for millennia.

While the Trump administration's plans were made clear in the orders, it's important to note that the vast bulk of the actions cannot be made unilaterally by the President without cooperation from government agencies, Congress, or other authorities. And many of these actions will include a public process in which Alaskans, and all Americans, will be able to voice their opinions.

The following is a list of issues Earthjustice and our clients are engaged in that are addressed in today's executive orders:

• Oil and Gas Leasing, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: The new administration is attempting to undo President Biden's cancellation of Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority's unlawful leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Arctic Refuge) and to reinstate a plan from Trump's previous administration that would permit widespread and risky oil and gas activities throughout the entire sensitive Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge. The Coastal Plain is sacred land for Gwich'in people and the calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou herd. Earthjustice has for decades defended the Arctic Refuge from fossil fuel development, which would destroy a critical intact ecosystem and worsen climate change. It should also be noted that not a single company bid on Refuge leases offered by Interior earlier this month.
• Oil and Gas Development, Western Arctic: At stake is whether the Western Arctic, a wildlife reserve with extraordinary ecological value that is also known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (Reserve), should be sacrificed to a dying oil and gas industry. In today's executive order, the Trump administration directed federal agencies to toss out the current Integrated Activity Plan (IAP) developed under the Obama and Biden administrations that protected roughly half of the 23-million-acre Reserve from oil and gas development and to readopt the IAP his administration put forward in 2020, which opened most areas in the Reserve for development. Trump also ordered the repeal of new regulations affording special protections to some lands within the Reserve. Earthjustice will defend against further oil and gas development in the Western Arctic, including any attempts to expand the Willow project.
• Offshore Oil Drilling: In one of the executive orders aimed at undoing 78 Biden-era politics, the Trump administration is seeking to reverse protections of offshore waters from oil-and-gas drilling enacted and reaffirmed under outgoing President Biden. These protections, in line with the two-thirds of American voters who support protecting coastlines from new offshore drilling, include public waters off the Atlantic, Pacific, Alaska, and Gulf coasts.
• Alaska LNG: In the Alaska-specific order, the Trump administration called for prioritizing the development of Alaska's liquified natural gas (LNG), including the sale and transportation of Alaskan LNG to other regions of the United States and allied nations within the Pacific region, as well as the permitting of all necessary pipeline and export infrastructure related to the Alaska LNG Project. All of this despite a $40 billion price tag and the irrevocable impact to the climate.
• Tongass National Forest Roadless Rule: In today's executive order, the new administration directed the Department of Agriculture to work toward repealing roadless rule protections for the Tongass National Forest. This could again raise the threat of industrial, old-growth logging within our nation's largest forest which serves as an important climate buffer by storing 20 percent of the carbon stored by all U.S. forests. In recent years, the region has largely transitioned away from logging in favor of sustainable local economies like fishing, tourism, and outdoor recreation - a change many local Alaskans and tribes have publicly supported during a revision of the Tongass forest plan now underway. Earthjustice has defended the Tongass for decades and will continue to do so.
• Protection of 28 Million Acres of Public Lands in Alaska: Today's order directs the Bureau of Land Management to lift protections that safeguarded 28 million acres of public lands in Alaska from fossil fuel leasing, hard rock mining, and other extractive development. The Biden administration concluded that these protections are critical for subsistence practices of many communities throughout Alaska that rely on these lands, and that these communities would be significantly harmed if these lands were developed.
• Izembek National Wildlife Refuge: Earthjustice represents the Native Village of Hooper Bay, a Tribe in Western Alaska that has long opposed a proposed land swap and road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. In today's order, the Trump administration directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ignore the subsistence rights of tribal governments and facilitate the construction of a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge contrary to the law, further endangering the Pacific black brant and emperor geese that Alaska Native people have relied upon for millennia.

A natural gas flare from an offshore oil drilling rig in Cook Inlet, Alaska. (Paul Souders / Getty Images)

Additional Resources

• About the Alaska Office

About Earthjustice

Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people's health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.