Environmentalists criticize Trump administration push for new oil and
gas drilling in Alaska
[June 04, 2025]
By BECKY BOHRER and MARK THIESSEN
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Top Trump administration officials — fresh off
touring one of the country's largest oil fields in the Alaska Arctic —
headlined an energy conference led by the state's Republican governor on
Tuesday that environmentalists criticized as promoting new oil and gas
drilling and turning away from the climate crisis.
Several dozen protesters were outside Gov. Mike Dunleavy's annual Alaska
Sustainable Energy Conference in Anchorage, where U.S. Interior
Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Environmental
Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin were featured speakers. The
federal officials were continuing a multiday trip aimed at highlighting
President Donald Trump's push to expand oil and gas drilling, mining and
logging in the state.
The trip has included meetings with pro-drilling groups and officials,
including some Alaska Native leaders on the petroleum-rich North Slope,
and a visit to the Prudhoe Bay oil field near the Arctic Ocean that
featured selfies near the 800-mile (1,287-kilometer) trans-Alaska oil
pipeline.
Calls for additional oil and gas drilling — including Trump’s renewed
focus on getting a massive liquefied natural gas project built — are
“false solutions” to energy needs and climate concerns, protester Sarah
Furman said outside the Anchorage convention hall, as people carried
signs with slogans such as “Alaska is Not for Sale” and “Protect our
Public Lands.”
"We find it really disingenuous that they’re hosting this conference and
not talking about real solutions,” she said.
Topics at the conference, which runs through Thursday, also include
mining, carbon management, nuclear energy, renewables and hydrogen. Oil
has been Alaska’s economic lifeblood for decades, and Dunleavy has
continued to embrace fossil fuels even as he has touted other energy
opportunities in the state.
Another protester, Rochelle Adams, who is Gwich’in, raised concerns
about the ongoing push to allow oil and gas drilling on the coastal
plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Gwich’in leaders have said
they consider the coastal plain sacred, as caribou they rely on calve
there. Leaders of the Iñupiaq community of Kaktovik, which is within the
refuge, support drilling as economically vital and have joined Alaska
political leaders in welcoming Trump's interest in reviving a leasing
program there.
“When these people come from outside to take and take and take, we are
going to be left with the aftereffects,” Adams said, adding later: “It's
our health that will be impacted. It’s our wellness, our ways of life.”
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People hold a sign during a protest outside the annual Alaska
Sustainable Energy Conference on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, in
Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Zeldin, during a friendly question-and-answer period led by
Dunleavy, said wildlife he saw while on the North Slope didn't
appear “to be victims of their surroundings” and seemed “happy.”
Burgum, addressing a move toward additional drilling in the National
Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, said wildlife and development can coexist.
His agency during the Alaska trip announced plans to repeal
Biden-era restrictions on future leasing and industrial development
in portions of the petroleum preserve that are designated as special
for their wildlife, subsistence or other values.
Wright bristled at the idea of policy "in the name of climate
change” that he said would have no impact on climate change.
Stopping oil production in Alaska doesn't change demand for oil, he
said.
“You know, we hear terms like clean energy and renewable energy.
These are inaccurate marketing terms,” he said. “There is no energy
source that does not take significant materials, land and impact on
the environment to produce. Zero.”
Officials court Asian countries to support gas project
Joining for part of the U.S. officials' trip were representatives
from Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines,
Taiwan and United Arab Emirates. Asian countries are being courted
to sign onto the Alaska gas project, which has floundered for years
to gain traction amid cost and other concerns. The project, as
proposed, would include a nearly 810-mile (1,300-kilometer) pipeline
that would funnel gas from the North Slope to port, with an eye
largely on exports of liquefied natural gas.
Wright told reporters a goal in inviting them to the Prudhoe Bay
stop was for them to see the oil pipeline infrastructure and
environment and meet with residents and business leaders.
Glenfarne Alaska LNG LLC, which has taken a lead in advancing the
project, on Tuesday announced expressions of interest from a number
of “potential partners." Costs surrounding the project — which have
been pegged around $44 billion for the pipeline and other
infrastructure — are in the process of being refined before a
decision is made on whether to move forward.
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Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska.
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