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During his second term, President-elect Donald Trump could open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, undoing President Biden's efforts to limit drilling in the refuge. The refuge is a vast 19 million-acre intact ecosystem along Alaska’s north slope, home to polar bears, musk oxen, wolves, and wolverines. The first Trump administration opened 1.5 million acres of the refuge's coastal plain to the oil and gas industry and held the refuge's first oil and gas lease sale.
President-elect Trump has promised to drill on the refuge when he returns to office, falsely claiming that it holds more oil than Saudi Arabia. This is in line with the plan outlined in Project 2025, which calls for an immediate expansion of oil and gas drilling in Alaska, including in the refuge.
Yet the oil and gas industry might not be interested. During the first Trump administration, only two small companies submitted bids for leases in the refuge and later relinquished them. Drilling in the refuge is difficult and expensive because of its remoteness and the lack of existing infrastructure. There is currently only one certain bidder, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which recently approved a plan to bid in the upcoming auction.
Native groups in the area are divided on drilling in the refuge. Iñupiaq leaders have stated that it could create new economic opportunities, while the Gwich’in Nation opposes drilling and urges new protections for the region.
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Every species on the planet has had to have migrated at some point, and here we can really see the effects of this border wall at blocking this migration.”
