Washington, D.C. – November 14, 2025 – In a bold and contentious policy shift, the Trump administration announced on Thursday the revocation of a key environmental regulation imposed by former President Joe Biden, opening vast swaths of Alaska's pristine Arctic wilderness to oil drilling and mining activities. The decision, formalized by the U.S. Department of the Interior, targets the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), a sprawling 23 million-acre federal land tract on the state's North Slope that has long been a battleground between energy development advocates and conservationists.
The NPR-A, established in 1923 by President Warren G. Harding as an emergency naval fuel reserve, was expanded for commercial petroleum development under the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976. Despite its name, the reserve encompasses some of the United States' most ecologically sensitive terrains, including tundra, wetlands, and coastal plains teeming with wildlife. It serves as critical habitat for species such as caribou herds from the Teshekpuk Lake region, grizzly and polar bears, and thousands of migratory birds that nest along the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The area, located roughly 600 miles north of Anchorage, remains one of the last large-scale undisturbed public lands in the nation, bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north and west.
At the heart of Thursday's announcement is the rescission of a 2024 Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule enacted under Biden, which prohibited oil and gas leasing on approximately 10.6 million acres—nearly half of the NPR-A—and imposed development restrictions on an additional 2 million acres. That rule specifically shielded five "Special Areas" within the reserve: Teshekpuk Lake, Kasegaluk Lagoon, Utukok River Uplands, Colville River, and Peard Bay, citing their vital roles in supporting subsistence hunting for Alaska Native communities and preserving biodiversity amid climate change pressures. Biden's administration justified the protections as a response to input from Indigenous groups, who emphasized the cultural and nutritional dependence on the land's caribou, waterfowl, and fish populations, which have sustained Iñupiaq and other Native peoples for millennia.
The Trump administration's reversal, detailed in a final rule set for publication in the Federal Register on November 17, 2025, aligns the NPR-A's management with 1977-era regulations, effectively greenlighting leasing across more than 80% of the reserve—a dramatic expansion from Biden's framework. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former North Dakota governor and vocal energy proponent, hailed the move as a "major step in unlocking the energy potential" of the region. In a statement, Burgum elaborated: "By rescinding the 2024 rule, we are following the direction set by President Trump to unlock Alaska’s energy potential, create jobs for North Slope communities, and strengthen American energy security." The department's press release further underscored the policy's alignment with Trump's broader "American Energy Dominance" agenda, asserting that it would "reduce reliance on foreign oil" and "restore" a regulatory environment favored by Alaskan stakeholders.
This action builds on a series of pro-development initiatives launched since Trump's inauguration earlier this year. In January, Trump issued Executive Order 14153, directing the Interior Department to expedite resource extraction in Alaska, including the revival of stalled projects like the Pebble Mine copper-gold deposit and the Alaska LNG pipeline. By June, Burgum had previewed plans to repeal Biden's NPR-A restrictions during the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference in Anchorage, criticizing them as "obstruction over production" that undermined congressional intent for the reserve. Additional steps have included permitting a 200-mile road through federal lands to access mineral districts in Northwest Alaska and approving a controversial land exchange for an 11-mile road in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to improve medical access for remote communities. In October, the administration reopened the adjacent Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for leasing, reversing another Biden ban and scheduling a winter lease sale across 1.56 million acres of coastal plain tundra.
Supporters, including Alaska's Republican leadership, celebrated the revocation as a boon for economic vitality. Governor Mike Dunleavy described it as "yet another step in the right direction for Alaska and American energy dominance," highlighting potential job creation in rural North Slope boroughs where unemployment hovers above 15%. U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, echoed this sentiment, calling it "a new day filled with opportunity for Alaskans" and praising the alignment with the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's emphasis on domestic fossil fuels. Industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute and Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat have lobbied for such changes, arguing that responsible development could generate billions in revenue—up to $1 billion annually in state royalties from NPR-A alone—and support infrastructure like the Alaska LNG project, whose front-end engineering study is slated for completion in December. Proponents also point to the reserve's untapped reserves, estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey at 896 million barrels of undiscovered oil and 8.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, as essential for national security amid global tensions.
Environmentalists and some Indigenous leaders, however, decried the decision as a reckless assault on fragile ecosystems already strained by warming temperatures that have melted permafrost and disrupted migration patterns. Nicole Scherer, senior director of campaigns at the Alaska Wilderness League, accused the Interior Department of disregarding thousands of public comments submitted since June, many from Native hunters and scientists warning of irreversible harm. "By dismantling these protections, Interior isn’t ‘restoring common sense,’" Scherer stated. "It’s sidelining science and traditional knowledge, silencing communities and putting irreplaceable lands and wildlife at risk." Groups like the Sierra Club and Earthjustice have vowed legal challenges, citing violations of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, similar to lawsuits that delayed Trump's first-term ANWR leasing efforts. Critics also note the irony: While Biden's Willow project approval in 2023 drew ire for its projected 9 million tons of annual emissions, Thursday's rule could expose even larger areas to seismic testing, pipelines, and spills, exacerbating Arctic amplification—where the region warms four times faster than the global average.
The announcement arrives amid a resurgent U.S. oil boom, with domestic production hitting 13.4 million barrels per day in 2025, but at a time when global markets grapple with oversupply and calls for renewables. Alaska's oil output, which peaked at 2 million barrels daily in the 1980s from Prudhoe Bay, has dwindled to about 450,000 barrels, underscoring the stakes for local economies dependent on extractive industries. As the final rule takes effect, it not only reignites a decades-old partisan divide but also tests the balance between energy independence and environmental stewardship in America's last frontier. With lease sales potentially slated for early 2026, the North Slope's future hangs in a precarious equilibrium, where the rumble of drill rigs could soon echo across the tundra.
