President Donald Trump’s expansive executive order aimed at encouraging oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in Alaska is being hailed by state political leaders who see the development of new fossil fuels as key to Alaska’s economic future, and criticized by environmental groups who see the proposals as worrisome. the face of an increasingly warm climate.

The order, signed on Trump’s first day in office Monday, is in line with a wish list submitted by Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy shortly after Trump’s election. It seeks, among other things, to open to oil and gas drilling an area of ​​the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge considered sacred to the indigenous Gwich’in, to reverse restrictions imposed by the Biden administration on drilling activities in Alaska’s North Slope National Petroleum Reserve and to reverse restrictions logging and building roads in the temperate rainforest that provides habitat for wolves, bears and salmon.

In many ways, the order seeks to revert to policies that were in place during Trump’s first term.

But Trump “just can’t wave a magic wand and make these things happen,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity. Environmental laws and rules must be followed in attempts to undo existing policies, and legal challenges to Trump’s plans are almost certain, he said.

“We are ready and looking forward to the fight of our lives to keep Alaska big, wild and rich,” Freeman said.

What is planned for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

The order seeks to overturn a decision by the Biden administration voiding seven leases issued as part of the first sale of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain refuge. Major oil companies did not participate in the sale, held in early 2021 in the last days of Trump’s first term. The lease went to a state corporation. Two small companies that also received leases in that sale had previously relinquished them.

Trump’s order calls on the Secretary of the Interior to “initiate additional leasing” and issue all permits and easements necessary for oil and gas exploration and development. Gwich’in leaders oppose drilling on the coastal plain, citing its importance to the caribou herds they rely on. Leaders of the Inupiaq community of Kaktovik, which is located inside the refuge, support the drilling and have expressed hope that their voices will be heard in the Trump administration after being frustrated by former President Joe Biden.

This comes weeks after the second lease sale, mandated by federal law in 2017. he did not make any offer. The law required that two lease offers be made by the end of 2024. The state sued the Interior Department and federal officials earlier this month, arguing among other things that the terms of the recent sale were too restrictive.

What are Alaska’s political leaders saying?

Alaska leaders hailed Trump’s order, titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.”

“It’s morning in Alaska again,” said Republican US Senator Dan Sullivan.

“President Trump delivered on his first day in office!” Dunleavy said on social media. “That’s why elections matter.”

Alaska has a history of fighting perceived overreach by the federal government that affects the state’s ability to develop its natural resources. State leaders have complained during the Biden administration that efforts to further oil, gas and mineral development have been unfairly hindered, although they also scored a major victory with the approval in 2023 of a major oil project known as Willow in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve. Environmentalists are fighting this approval in court.

Dunleavy has repeatedly argued that developing Alaska’s vast resources is critical to its future, and has touted underground carbon storage and carbon offset programs as a way to diversify revenue while continuing oil, gas, and coal development and pursuing timber industry programs.

The state faces economic challenges: Oil production, its longtime lifeblood, is a fraction of what it once was, in part because of aging fields, and for more than a decade more people have left Alaska than moved here.

What is happening now?

Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the conservative group Center for Western Priorities, called Trump’s order “everything, everywhere, all at once” that seeks to undo measures that in some cases took the Biden administration years to implement.

“The time it would take the Interior Department to accomplish everything in that executive order is worth at least one term, maybe two. And even then, you’d need science on your side when it all comes back. And we know in the case of Alaska in particular, science he’s not on the side of unlimited drilling,” he said, pointing to climate and Arctic warming concerns.

Communities have experienced the impacts of climate change, including thinning sea ice, coastal erosion and melting permafrost that undermines infrastructure.

Erik Grafe, an attorney with the group Earthjustice, called the Arctic “the worst place to expand oil and gas development. Neither place is good because we have to contract and transition to a green economy and deal with the climate crisis.”