rupted. Some resource development ac- tions could get pushback within Alas- ka, too. ANWR leasing and more in NPR-A will be welcomed in North Slope communities but a new push on the Ambler Road, if done too aggres - sively, will face opposition from lo- cal villages and also politically strong Alaska Native corporations like Doyon Ltd. and NANA Regional Corp. Also, some Trump policies could hurt Alaskans. Proposed tariffs on imports, for example, could trigger retaliatory tariffs which will impede exports of Alaska minerals like zinc. Alaska’s fisheries industry also will be vulnerable because much Alaska sea- food is sold in export markets.
The biggest improvements under Trump are likely to be a more busi- ness-friendly attitude within agen- cies. There will be upper-level chang- es but many existing personnel will remain and attitudes will change be- cause people there will want to adhere to the new direction evident in Wash- ington, D.C. Even under Biden, many mid-lev- el managers were not happy with the policy decision coming from Wash- ington, D.C., particularly in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But while these changes will be helpful if Trump’s policies are too drastic, it could make projects more vulnera- ble to lawsuit and delays. That would happen if agencies are cut too sharp- ly so that the technical and scientific work underpinning permits are dis-
like caribou and polar bears from pe- troleum leasing, and when this was released it set the stage for the more restrictive and smaller sale recently held, which failed. Under a new leasing plan, it would seem fairly simple to enlarge the area to be leased back to what was offered in 2021 (a much larger part of the 1.5-million-acre Coastal Plain) but in the newly revised EIS the Interior De - partment must be able to explain that the protections in the Biden EIS are no longer needed. This might be difficult in a court fight yet to come. It’s easier to tight - en restrictions under the U.S. Envi - ronmental Protection Act than it is to loosen them without putting forward a scientific basis. Given that there’s not a lot of new research on polars bears and caribou, for instance, this might make a revised EIS legally vul - nerable. A new sale could also be held us- ing the Biden EIS, but companies may again be reluctant to bid. Summing up, it’s no slam dunk. There are also procedural hurdles confronting expanded leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska mainly in that a new Integrated Ac - tivity Plan, or IAP, for land manage - ment likely needed, and IAPs can take several years if they are to be legally defensible. Revisions to NPR-A land management regulations, another controversial Biden policy, will likely take time to undo. On the Ambler Road, Trump’s team can fairly quickly redo Biden’s Record of Decision on the EIS for the 211-mile mineral access road (which selected the “no action” alternative, killing the permits) but new federal permits would need to be issued. Also, the company exploring in the Ambler region, Ambler Metals, believes a new supplemental EIS will be needed. That will take time and spur new lawsuits. An action Trump can also take, however, would be to lift the 1970s-era Public Land Orders that have closed access to millions of acres of public lands in northern and western Alaska to state land selections and mineral exploration. These old orders include PLO 5150 covering the Trans Alaska Pipeline System federal land corridor from the North Slope to Interior Alaska. The state of Alaska has long wanted PLO 5150 lifted to bring the vital TAPS corridor under state control, but Biden resisted this. It may now happen.
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on leasing in the Arctic National Wild- life Refuge, a second on drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and a third on the proposed Ambler minerals access road. In initiating a new leasing plan in ANWR, it would seem relatively sim - ple to add new required lease sales in the framework of a proposed exten- sion to the 2017 Tax Act, under which the 2021 and most recent sales were carried out. However, there are still challenges. This will likely require another revi- sion to the federal Environmental Im - pact Statement, or EIS, done first un - der Trump for the 2021 sale and then revised by Biden for the recent sale. Former Interior Secretary Deb Haa - land claimed the earlier Trump EIS was deficient. The revision, under her Interior Department, not surprisingly not- ed more adverse impacts on wildlife
how fast the ship of state will turn is uncertain. Biden attempted to “Trump-proof” many of his policies going out the door and the new presi- dent’s team will try to quickly undo as many of these as possible. But there will be lawsuits that will slow things down, and while the new president succeeded in getting a con- servative U.S. Supreme Court in place during his first term, many of the key lower federal court judges, including in Alaska, were appointed earlier and are still presiding. Alaska U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason, for example, is a tough, independent jurist who has years of experience with complex Alaska natural resource cases, many of them related to North Slope oil and gas. The complications in effecting a quick course change can be seen in three high-profile Alaska issues, one
Second term will bring big changes at federal level There’s a new U.S. President in Washington, D.C. with big plans for shaking up the federal government. With Alaska’s future tied to natural resource development, new Presi- dent Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for oil, gas and minerals development is a breath of fresh air after the cold shoulder former President Joe Biden gave Alaska’s key industries. Trump hopes to hit the ground running with a number of executive orders (these can be issued without Congress) that will attempt to undo many of Biden’s orders. Trump will definitely plot a course change in many federal agencies but
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