Former President Donald Trump pledged to unleash American energy production with new oil and gas operations approved in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
In a Monday night interview on X with platform CEO Elon Musk, Trump promised to get oil and gas production on Alaska’s north slope up and running “quickly” four years after President Joe Biden suspended plans for drilling.
“I’ll get it going very quickly because not only is it big for Alaska,” Trump said, but also “for the United States.” It’s “pure, really good stuff.”
The Republican president had previously opened the 1.6-million-acre stretch on Alaska’s north coast for oil and gas development through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The administration issued the first leases to drill in ANWR’s coastal plain on Trump’s final full day in office before Biden halted projects and ultimately terminated the leases last summer.
Drilling along the 1.6 million acres of the nearly 20-million-acre refuge has remained a political football for decades, with Republican administrations repeatedly failing against Democrats to bring oil and gas production to communities within what is known as the 1002 Area. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that below the surface of an area roughly the size of South Carolina lie between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil. If successful, the region, just 60 miles from where companies have been drilling for decades with minimal environmental impact in Prudhoe Bay, could become the most productive oil field in the country.
William Shughart, a research director
