Energy & Mining

The Trump administration plans to lift environmental protections on roughly half of the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope, reopening the area to possible oil and gas drilling.

The new move would reverse actions taken during the Biden administration to restrict development in the 23 million-acre reserve.

The plans, announced Sunday in Utqiagvik and formally on Monday by the U.S. Department of the Interior, open a public comment period, with final action to come later. The plans were announced as three of the Trump administration’s top officials visit Alaska.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Lee Zeldin, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, are in Alaska this week for a series of events, including a speaking engagement at Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s annual sustainable energy conference, which begins Tuesday in Anchorage.

During a brief question-and-answer session with reporters on Sunday, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, sat alongside the three cabinet members and called the effort to restrict development in NPR-A the “most egregious effort of the Biden administration,” adding that “one of the top priorities is to get the NPRA back to where it was supposed to be by the intention of Congress, to develop oil and to remove all the regulations that the Biden guys put on NPR-A, and that is a huge priority.”

While large oil companies have expressed little interest to date in drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which lies to the east of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, there has been interest in drilling within the reserve, which lies to the west.

Since the first days of the second Trump administration, federal officials have said that they are prioritizing an effort to eliminate obstacles for companies interested in digging or drilling for natural resources in Alaska.

Burgum, Wright and Zeldin traveled to the North Slope after meeting with state officials in Anchorage on Sunday and were scheduled to tour Pump Station No. 1 of the trans-Alaska Pipeline System before returning to Anchorage on Tuesday to participate in the governor’s energy conference.

The two-hour Anchorage event was largely closed to the public, but reporters were able to listen to closing remarks and ask limited questions at the end.

There were no new details about the potential construction of a trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline, and officials did not address the Trump administration’s decision to freeze or rescind grants awarded to renewable energy projects in Alaska.

Burgum, speaking in Anchorage, noted that Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport offers direct flights to 16 countries and talked about the “rise of the Pacific” in terms of global commerce.

“Alaska can play such a huge role in this, but we’ve got to get the federal government out of your way. That’s what the three of us are here to do,” he said.

In response to a question, Burgum said the administration plans to prioritize development of the planned Ambler Road, a 211-mile mining access road through the Brooks Range, and the proposed King Cove Road, an 11-mile road connecting King Cove to the Cold Bay airport, among other projects.

On Monday, environmental groups responded to the NPR-A decision with scorn and concern.

Grandmothers Growing Goodness, an environmental group that supports Indigenous communities in the Arctic, said that the repeal of the Biden administration protections would significantly impact Teshekpuk Lake and its surroundings, which are important for the Teshekpuk caribou herd. “The area is also integral to Indigenous subsistence practices, supporting hunting, fishing, and gathering,” they said, in an email statement with the announcement

Protest demonstrations are planned in Anchorage for Monday and Tuesday to oppose the proposed Alaska LNG pipeline project and “other fossil fuel projects promoted by Gov. Dunleavy’s ‘sustainable energy conference,’” according to organizers.

“It’s hard to overstate the havoc this could wreak on the Western Arctic’s undisturbed habitat for caribou, polars bears and belugas,” said Marlee Goska, Alaska attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Trump’s fixation on plundering Alaska’s ecosystems for short-term gain is matched only by the stupidity of turning this precious place into a fossil fuel extraction site. Alaska’s vast expanses of wild lands are a big part of what makes our state so special, and we’ll do everything possible to protect these places.”

Three high-level Trump administration officials are touring Alaska this week, to make good on a day one promise from the president: unleashing Alaska’s resource potential.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin are part of a group that will travel to the North Slope on Monday and later participate in Governor Mike Dunleavy’s sustainable energy conference in Anchorage.

After a roundtable with energy stakeholders Sunday morning, Zeldin said the administration wants to balance protecting the environment with growing the nation’s economy.

“We don’t have to pick one or the other. We choose both,” Zeldin said. “It is my three favorite words — they were spoken about in different ways over the course of this morning’s roundtable — approved, primacy and durability.”

Zeldin’s tenure as EPA administrator began with what he described as “the largest deregulatory announcement in history,” rolling back a couple dozen environmental regulations.

Interior Secretary Burgum’s department oversees more than half the land in Alaska, and he says that land is roughly half the land his department is in charge of.

“When you take a look at the water, the mineral resources, all those things here, this is a huge thing,” Burgum said. “You know, the Secretary of Interior should be here all the time, every day, because it’s such a big part of the portfolio.”

All three described the state as key to the nation’s ability to produce energy and provide it to international partners. They say the roundtable was a way to learn what stands in the way of producing energy in the state from stakeholders.

Monday’s visit to Prudhoe Bay will include a tour of a pump station along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and meetings with Alyeska Pipeline officials.

The governor’s energy conference runs from Tuesday through Thursday in Anchorage.

WASHINGTON — In an unusually quiet session, the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee passed a bill to mandate new oil lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and allow construction of the Ambler Road, crossing protected federal land in Northwest Alaska.

Lawmakers approved those items early Wednesday, as part of a budget reconciliation bill, with barely a peep from the Republican side of the room.

Democrats taunted. They fired off passionate assertions that usually get a rise out of the other side. They cajoled. They pleaded. Nothing they did could get Republicans on the committee to debate them.

Alaska Congressman Nick Begich III, like other Republicans, sat calmly scrolling on his phone or leafing through papers.

Republicans had a strategy, and they stuck with it.

Democrats tried to defeat portions of the bill with more than a hundred amendments. The first one would’ve removed the requirement to hold oil lease sales in the Arctic Refuge and killed any chance of ever drilling there.

“The Trump administration’s reckless and thoughtless push to sell off the refuge isn’t about lowering energy costs. It’s about sacrificing your public lands for his billionaire buddies, and that’s why I urge support for this amendment,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif. “We should be voting to permanently protect this special place rather than auctioning it off to the highest bidder.”

In response, Republicans said nothing. Although, as soon as Huffman yielded the mic, Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., made an announcement: Sandwiches were enroute.

“Soon we’ll have lunch in the back,” Westerman said. “We’re not going to recess for lunch, but if you want to go have lunch, you can go in the back room and have lunch.”

That’s how it went, through more than a hundred amendments, for hours at a time.

Democrats said Republicans wanted to avoid debating policy so that the bill wouldn’t get derailed in the Senate. A reconciliation bill is special because Senators can’t filibuster it, but to qualify, all the components have to be about revenue and spending.

The silent treatment had another benefit: The proceedings moved along faster. Still, it was after midnight when the committee passed the bill, by a vote of 26-17. One Democrat voted for it.

Alaska Congressman Nick Begich did not respond to an interview request but he claimed the win.

“This is a major victory for Alaska and for American energy independence,” he said in a statement emailed from his office.

At the U.S. Capitol, opponents of drilling in the refuge often cite the Gwich’in people, whose traditional culture depends on the caribou that give birth in the refuge. But oil development is more popular on the North Slope, in and near the refuge.

The bill “will advance Iñupiaq self-determination on our homelands and support economic development opportunities in our region that are crucial to sustaining our Indigenous culture,” said Nagruk Harcharek, president of a well-funded advocacy group called Voice of Arctic Iñupiat, by email.

Athan Manuel, the Sierra Club’s director of public land protection, has watched the House Resources Committee hold countless Arctic Refuge debates, many of them fiery, since 1998.

“This one feels weirder and worse,” he said.

Years ago, there were Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the debate. The Arctic Refuge fight didn’t entirely align with party labels.

Now, Manuel said, there’s less independent thought in Congress and more partisan dictates.

It was clear from the start, Manuel said, that all the Democratic amendments would fail. And they did.

In addition to the Arctic Refuge provisions, the bill mandates lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve and Cook Inlet.

The reconciliation bill is controversial for other reasons, and GOP unity might not hold in Congress. Some Republicans say they’ll vote no because the bill adds trillions to the deficit.

A controversial mineral exploration project near Haines has been in limbo since its biggest investor backed out late last year. Now, the company that took full ownership wants to step back, too, further complicating the project’s future.

American Pacific Mining Corp. confirmed last week it plans to distance itself from the zinc, copper, gold, silver and barite exploration site, which has long fueled debate over what a mine would mean for the local environment and economy.

The company first bought the so-called Palmer Project in 2022. But American Pacific CEO Warwick Smith said last week that the company now plans to “transact” on the project, which he indicated could mean selling it to an Alaska-based company.

“We’re in the midst of having those conversations and looking to move that asset to a new home and take equity back from it,” Warwick said during a virtual roundtable posted to the company’s YouTube channel.

The plan comes after Dowa Metals and Mining, a Japanese smelting company, gave up its 70% stake in the project late last year, leaving American Pacific with full ownership.

At the time, American Pacific said the deal came about because the two companies had different objectives for the project. And Smith touted the deal as a “transformative transaction” for the company that provided a “clear path forward” for Palmer.

But now the project stands to change hands again. Warwick said the company has decided to prioritize a different, Montana-based exploration project over Palmer. He emphasized that the latter still has a lot of potential but will require a major investment in the interim.

“It’s going to take money to do that. And it’s Alaska, it’s outside of our wheelhouse, if we’re completely honest,” Warwick said, adding that he thinks there are companies better suited to move the project forward.

For years the project has been a source of controversy. Proponents say the mine would bring much-needed jobs to Haines along with an infusion of investor dollars. Local tribes and conservation groups, meanwhile, have raised concerns because the exploration site sits near the village of Klukwan and a creek in the Chilkat watershed, which supports a run of all five species of Pacific salmon.

Kimberley Strong, who serves as vice president of the Chilkat Indian Village, said the local ecosystem for millennia has served as a “food bowl” for Tlingit communities – and today is a key pillar of the local economy, referring specifically to the fishing and tourism industries.

“This has been a sustainable society for thousands of years,” Strong said. “And there’s no reason to jeopardize that for a short term extraction process.”

During the roundtable discussion, one participant asked if Palmer would ever realistically be developed into a mine amid permitting challenges and local dynamics.

Peter Mercer, the president of Constantine Mining LLC, which operates the project locally, said Palmer could still become a mine. He nodded to other successful mines in Southeast Alaska – such as Greens Creek Mine near Juneau – and said the region boasts a “tremendous amount” of mineral potential.

Also working in the project’s favor, Mercer said, is the executive order President Donald Trump signed in Januaryfocused on “unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential.”

“Yes, this can be done here,” Mercer said. “You have to incorporate the discussions around salmon, the landscape, the environment and the culture. You have to incorporate all of that into your planning, but that’s what you have to do for all these projects in this day and age.”

It remains unclear what a sale would mean for Constantine. A potential buyer could, for example, acquire both the company and the project – or opt to bring in its own operator.

A Constantine spokesperson said the project is in a “transitional period” and that there will not be a drilling program at the exploration site this summer.

Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part series about the Red Chris Mine in Canada, which could contaminate Southeast Alaska waters. Read Part 1 here.

Red Chris Mine sits 25 miles from Alaska’s border in the Stikine River Watershed. It has operated for a decade, but its ownership changed two years ago.

Before the new company, Newmont, bought the mine, conservation scientists conducted research over a seven-year span. Newmont has made some environmental adjustments since it acquired the mine in 2023.

But Newmont is also hoping to expand the copper and gold mine, which is already bigger than Wrangell Island. That’s even after an environmental report was published in March.

It shows heavy metals have leached into a transboundary Alaska and British Columbia watershed. Communities downstream of the Stikine River are concerned about this, including Wrangell’s tribal government, the Wrangell Cooperative Association.

“It’s very difficult when you have colonial constructs imposed on you,” said WCA Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese. She’s the president of Southeast Indigenous Transboundary Commission, which represents 15 tribal groups in Alaska and Canada. “We view the border as a colonial construct.”

She said downstream tribes are the ones that will get the ill effects of mining and they should have a say in how safe the mines upriver are.

A March report by SkeenaWild Conservation Trust researched the mine’s impacts over the first seven years of operation. It said that numerous contaminants from the mine, mainly selenium and copper, are elevated in the surrounding creeks and lakes. These levels are high enough to impact aquatic life, according to the report. Reese said she’s worried about the Stikine River salmon that so many rely on.

“Any kind of failure would just have a huge risk to downstream human populations – us here in Wrangell,” she said. “This is a very critical issue.”

Reese said they have requested to meet with Canada’s Tahltan Central Government since the mine is in its territory and the government co-manages it with Newmont. KSTK reached out to the Tahltan Central Government and hasn’t received a response.

Researcher hopes report will influence similar B.C. mining projects

Adrienne Berchtold is the primary author of the environmental report. She’s an ecologist and mining impacts researcher with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust.

She said her team made the report as a model for other similar proposed mining projects in British Columbia. Currently, there are eight active copper mines operating in the province.

The report states that the leaching contaminants have affected rainbow trout in the mine’s surrounding lakes, which are part of the Stikine River Watershed. Berchtold hopes the findings will encourage B.C. to improve policies and regulations.

“Our concern is that the provincial government has not required mine owners to address that and to really look into what impact those trends might be having on fish in the receiving lakes,” she said.

Newmont spokesperson Kievan Hirji said since the company acquired the mine in 2023, it has established a relationship with the Tahltan First Nation, co-managing the mine under an Impact Benefit Agreement.

“We’re very proud to be going through that process,” he said. “(We) have been working very, very closely with the Tahltan Nation since acquiring Red Chris in 2023 to build a really positive and strong relationship that’s really predicated on that consent as well as transparency and trust and a shared vision for the future.”

According to Hirji, about 15 percent of Newmont workers are members of the Tahltan Nation.

“We also pay royalty payments to the Tahltan Nation,” he said. “That mine is reaching its end of life within the next couple of years, and if that economic success is going to continue, the mine requires an extension to the life of mine.”

That extension, he said, would be an underground mine, or block cave mine. It would sit within the footprint of the existing open pit mine and is expected to last 13 years.

‘We will leave it to the province of British Columbia to continue with that engagement’

First, Hirji said, British Columbia and the Tahltan Nation must assess Newmont’s proposal. The tribal consortium testified this spring against the project.

As for the tailings dams, which hold the mine’s waste, there have been links drawn between the Mount Polley dam and Red Chris’s. Mount Polley’s tailings dam broke in 2014, contaminating nearby waterways. But Hirji said Red Chris’s is constructed differently, even if some of the materials are the same.

“We’ve looked very carefully at the structural integrity of the dam at the Red Chris Mine with Tahltan Central Government, and there is no concern with respect to structural integrity,” he said. “That dam is structurally sound, safe.”

An ongoing concern of downriver tribes is that they haven’t had much say in the mine’s operation. Hirji said that’s not the company’s fault – it’s up to the British Columbia government.

“We will leave it to the province of British Columbia to continue with that engagement,” he said. “We’re really focused on the relationship that we have with Tahltan Nation through the Impact, Benefit and Co-management Agreement, and really building a shared vision with Tahltan Nation.”

Shawn Larabee is the communications manager of BC’s Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals. He said British Columbia takes environmental protections seriously. He wrote in an email that QUOTE “the scope of consultation the Province undertakes with U.S. Tribes may be different from its consultation with First Nations in B.C.”

Last year’s annual reports of Red Chris Mine are expected to be made available by the B.C. government in the coming weeks.

Donald Trump’s return to the presidency has buoyed hopes for the 800-mile, $44 billion Alaska LNG pipeline project. And the project has taken some important steps forward in recent months.

But you’d be forgiven for being skeptical. Alaskans have dreamed for decades of a line that would bring the North Slope’s immense gas reserves south for export.

But there’s a reason it hasn’t happened: Nobody has wanted to pay for it.

So, is a gasline more likely than ever? Or is this déjà vu all over again?

Suffice it to say that Gov. Mike Dunleavy was encouraged when he heard Trump call out the gasline project: “My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska,” the president said in a speech to Congress back in March.

“Yes!” Dunleavy said in response, in a video his office posted to social media.

The video shows the governor watching Trump on a smartphone, offering color commentary and raising his fist in agreement. There’s some cheery acoustic guitar music in the background, a take on The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun.”

There is plenty to be excited about.

The state agency shepherding the gasline project has signed an agreement handing it off to a private developer for some final engineering design work. They’re hoping to get to an investment decision around the end of the year.

Dunleavy, after a trip to Asia earlier this year, came home with a nonbinding letter saying a Taiwanese state energy company is interested in buying gas from the project.

And, of course, the president has said it’s a priority — so much so that his administration is planning an Alaska summit with Asian leaders — potential gas-buyers — in early June.

So a lot of folks are saying things like this, from House Minority Leader Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, at a House Resources Committee meeting on April 30.

“After years of uncertainty, planning and perseverance, the AK LNG project is no longer just a vision,” she said. “It’s closer than ever to becoming a reality, thanks to significant progress in permitting, global interest and most importantly, renewed momentum from the federal government.”

The project, though, faces a lot of the same barriers it’s always faced. It’s hard to build a pipeline from the Arctic, never mind an 800-mile one. You have to have enough customers for the gas lined up for anyone to throw down the billions and billions of dollars it’ll take to get it built. The cost was last estimated at $43.8 billion in 2023, according to the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the agency behind the project.

So Rep. Zack Fields, D- Anchorage, doesn’t want Alaskans to get ahead of themselves. There is one potential buyer who’s put pen to paper. Others haven’t signed on quite yet.

“I just don’t want people to be misled that this is about to happen,” Fields said. “I don’t think it’s extremely likely.”

The project faces opposition from conservation groups, who say extracting more fossil fuels would worsen climate change. But, like a lot of folks in this oil-and-gas-friendly state, Fields said it would be great if the pipeline is eventually built. It could provide some state revenue — though exactly how much isn’t clear — and perhaps lower energy prices for a significant fraction of the state’s residents.

For now, though, Fields said he’s not counting his methane molecules before they come south.

“I think it would be awesome if one of those buyers materializes and buys the gas,” he said. “But that hasn’t happened yet, and until it does, we’re not really in any different situation than we have been for the last 50 years.”

Though there’s still a long road ahead for the pipeline — even in a best-case scenario, gas wouldn’t start flowing until the early 2030s — one has to admit, it’s been a heck of a turnaround.

It was just a year ago that the future of the pipeline project was on the ropes. Lawmakers were frustrated at the gasline agency’s slow progress. They floated cutting its funding and mothballing the project.

One of those frustrated lawmakers was Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, a co-chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. These days, however, he’s more optimistic.

“It was, in my opinion, highly unlikely we’d get a gasline until the Trump administration came in,” he said.

That’s due in part to Trump’s hardball strategy on tariffs and international trade, Stedman said. Japan — one of the places Alaska’s LNG could go — has discussed increasing natural gas imports as a way to shink the country’s trade deficit with the U.S.

But whether that strategy will work, Stedman said, is uncertain.

“It remains to be seen if jawboning Japan and Korea will work to get them to write a check,” he said.

If it doesn’t work, though, Stedman has another idea for how the federal government could help get the pipeline built.

“A big equity infusion,” he said. “You put in $20 billion or $30 billion, or some significant number, to get in and get it built and de-risk it. And then, just sell it once it’s up and built and running and profitable.”

The investment, Stedman said, could even make the taxpayer some money.