President Donald Trump wants to double the amount of oil coursing through Alaska's vast pipeline system and build a massive natural gas project as its "big, beautiful twin," a top administration official said on Monday, June 2, while touring a prolific oil field near the Arctic Ocean.
The remarks by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright came as he and two other Trump Cabinet members − Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin − visited Prudhoe Bay as part of a multiday trip aimed at highlighting Trump’s push to expand oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in the state that drew criticism from environmentalists.
During the trip, Burgum’s agency also announced plans to repeal Biden-era restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in portions of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that are designated as special for their wildlife, subsistence or other values. The petroleum reserve is West of Prudhoe Bay and Deadhorse, the industrial encampment near the starting point of the trans-Alaska pipeline system. The pipeline, which runs for 800 miles, has been Alaska’s economic lifeline for nearly 50 years.
Oil and natural gas are in significant demand worldwide, Wright told a group of officials and pipeline employees in safety hats and vests who gathered near the oil pipeline on a blustery day with 13° Fahrenheit windchills. The pipeline stretched out over the snow-covered landscape. "You have the big two right here," he said. "Let’s double oil production, build the big, beautiful twin, and we will help energize the world and we will strengthen our country and strengthen our families."
Alaska political leaders have long complained about perceived federal overreach by the US government, which oversees about 60% of lands in Alaska. Sullivan, Dunleavy and Alaska's senior US senator, Lisa Murkowski, often complained that Biden's team was too restrictive in its approach to many resource development issues. Murkowski, an at-times vocal critic of Trump, joined for the Sunday meeting in Anchorage, where she said Alaska leaders "want to partner with you. We want to be that equal at the table instead of an afterthought."
Environmentalists criticized Interior's planned rollback of restrictions in portions of the petroleum reserve. While Sullivan called the repeal a top priority, saying Congress intended to have development in the petroleum reserve, environmentalists maintain that the law balances allowances for oil drilling with a need to provide protections for sensitive areas and decried Interior's plans as wrong-headed. Erik Grafe, an attorney with Earthjustice, called the Trump administration's intense focus on oil and gas troubling, particularly in a state experiencing the real-time impacts of climate change . He called the continued pursuit of fossil fuel development "very frustrating and heartbreaking to see."