Three members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet traveled to Alaska this week to cement the administration’s intention to bring “Drill, Baby, Drill” to the state and unleash its energy potential.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin began their multiday visit in Alaska on Sunday. They traveled to the northernmost part of the state, which has remained at the forefront of the debate around increased energy development.
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Over several days, the Cabinet members called for increased oil production in Alaska and the construction of the Alaska LNG pipeline, which would allow for increased exports of liquefied natural gas from the North Slope region to Asia.
The 800-mile pipeline is intended to start in Prudhoe Bay along the Arctic Ocean, where the existing trans-Alaska oil pipeline (also around 800 miles) begins.
While visiting the northern region, Wright said the administration wants to see double the amount of oil pumped through the existing pipeline, which only averaged around 465,000 barrels a day in 2024. At its peak in the 1980s, the pipeline saw around 2 million barrels of oil flowing daily.
With the resources available in the North Slope, Wright said Tuesday, it is “not a stretch at all” to quadruple the state’s energy production within the next 10 years.
“100% achievable,” the energy secretary said during Alaska’s fourth annual Sustainable Energy Conference, alongside Burgum and Zeldin.
Wright specifically pointed to the LNG pipeline project and said boosting energy development in Alaska will provide economic benefits and “transform the quality of life” for those living in Alaska due to new jobs and roads reaching remote cities.
Zeldin agreed, saying the project will directly benefit those in North Slope living in conditions he compared to villages he visited while deployed in Iraq.
“If we can get this project over the finish line, it’s going to be better for America. It’s going to be better for Alaska. It’s going to be better for our international partners … It is going to be better for the world. So this is a very big deal that has to get done,” Zeldin said during the Tuesday conference.
Toward the start of their trip, the three Cabinet members visited the city of Utqiagvik, home to the largest Inupiaq settlement in the state.
Utqiagvik, the northernmost city in the United States, is located along the North Slope between the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
As these regions are known for being rich in resources, the Trump administration has begun exploring ways to expand oil and gas drilling in both areas, building upon executive orders signed by Trump on his first day in office.
On Monday, Burgum announced that the Department of the Interior proposed rescinding a Biden-era rule meant to keep 13 million acres of the NPR-A off limits to new drilling. The rule, issued in April of last year, banned drilling on nearly half of the NPR-A, with the aim to conserve the land, environment, and habitats of wildlife in the region, including polar bears, caribou, and thousands of migratory birds.
Burgum blasted the rule in the announcement as government overreach, saying the region can support U.S. energy security through “responsible development.”
The secretary insisted on Tuesday that the proposed rescission would not open protected wilderness areas in the region.
“Yes, there’s amazing wildlife. Yes, we can protect all that, but it’s not a wilderness area,” Burgum said during the sustainable energy conference.
“It is a National Petroleum Reserve designed for exactly this, for the benefit and the use of the American people to help strategically, have the ability to sell energy to our friends and allies, [and] to have an energy abundance at home,” Burgum added.
There have long been concerns about the effects of increased drilling in the North Slope of Alaska on the surrounding wildlife and environment. However, the Trump administration’s efforts to open up Alaska have recently been welcomed by many local and state leaders, including the Inupiat, who have relied on funds generated from energy development.
Advocacy group Voice of the Arctic Inupiat estimated that more than 95% of the North Slope’s tax revenue budget comes from taxation of resource development infrastructure, such as oil and gas drilling, with those funds going on to benefit schools, health clinics, water and sewer systems, and much more.
Several local Native leaders met with Burgum, Zeldin, and Wright during the trip this week to discuss the effects of drilling operations on rural development for tribes in the North Slope.
“I think everybody was pleasantly surprised that they were here, but I think it just shows the commitment to our priorities and making sure that there is a relationship that is built between the region [and] the federal government, something that we’ve been asking for for a very long time,” VOICE President Nagruk Harcharek told the Washington Examiner.
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“If there’s going to be durable policy and there’s going to be responsible resource development, it has to include us at the table,” he said.
The trip concluded on Tuesday with the Sustainable Energy Conference. The EPA confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Zeldin intended to remain in the state through the end of the week for agency-related meetings.