Biden moves to limit oil drilling and mineral mining in Alaska, in latest win for greens

The Interior Department made a series of moves on Friday putting millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness outside the reach of oil drilling and critical mineral mining, drawing praise from environmental and conservation groups and native tribes while angering Republican lawmakers.

The moves show the Biden administration continuing its efforts to win favor with the environmental voters put off by his administration's approval of the massive Willow oil project in Alaska and its defense of an oil pipeline running through the Strait of Mackinac in Michigan.

But it comes at the expense of angering Alaska's Republican senators, including moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski who has supported some of the administration's policies and refused to back Biden's opponent in November's presidential race, former President Donald Trump.

Biden said in a statement he was "proud that my Administration is taking action to conserve more than 13 million acres in the Western Arctic and to honor the culture, history, and enduring wisdom of Alaska Natives who have lived on and stewarded these lands since time immemorial."

But Murkowski and other GOP senators held a press conference Thursday to bash the moves.

“It’s more than a one-two punch to Alaska,” Murkowski said. “When you take off access to our resources ... when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore, you cannot move it, this is the energy insecurity we’re talking about. We’re still going to need the germanium, the gallium, the copper. We’re still going to need the oil. We’re just not going to get it from Alaska."

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management officially recommended against building the Ambler Road, a proposed 211-mile long roadway championed by Murkowski that would have led to mining in an undeveloped part of the state. The decision, as first reported by POLITICO, all but kills a project initially proposed by the Ambler Metals company and approved under the Trump administration.

The agency found that building the road would “significantly and irrevocably impact resources, including those supporting important subsistence uses, in ways that cannot be adequately mitigated.”

Not building it, however, strands copper and zinc deposits in the area that mining companies had hoped to develop.

Ambler Metals management was “deeply disappointed” in what it called Interior’s “politically motivated decision,” Kaleb Froehlich, the company's managing director, said in a statement.

“We remain committed to this important project and will continue to push forward using all possible avenues,” Froehlich said.

Local tribes said the Trump administration did not consult with them before approving the road and praised the Biden administration’s decision to kill the project.

“This is a historic win for the Alaska Native community,” Tanana Chiefs Conference Chief Chair Brian Ridley said in a statement. “It reaffirms that our voices matter, that our knowledge is invaluable, and that our lands and animals deserve protection."

Interior also issued a final rule Friday that will remove the entire U.S. Arctic Ocean and 11 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and nearly 3 million acres of federal waters off the Alaska coast from consideration for new oil and gas leasing. The move puts nearly half of the NPR-A's 23 million acres off limits to oil drilling.

Interior's BLM, which oversees the area, said it received more than 100,000 comments on the proposal it first made last year.

"The majority of the area closed to oil and gas leasing was determined to be medium or low potential for discovery or development of oil and gas resources," Interior said in its final rule.

The department said it will call for public comment on the possibility that it could add more land to the conservation area.

The Alaska announcements represented the latest wins for green and conservation groups, following BLM finalizing a sweeping new rule on Thursday placing conservation and restoration of public lands on equal footing with energy development and mining.

Environmental groups and some native tribes had pressured the Biden administration to do more to restrict oil companies’ access to land in Alaska. The administration in March 2023 approved ConocoPhillips’ massive Willow oil project in the NPR-A. But the company said in comments that the new rule “would significantly and adversely affect future proposals for new activities and developments” for the project and conflict with the company’s existing oil leases.

Dustin Meyer, senior vice president for policy at the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association representing large oil companies, called the rule "yet another step in the wrong direction.”

“This misguided rule from the Biden Administration sharply limits future oil and natural gas development in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, a region explicitly intended by Congress to bolster America’s energy security while generating important economic growth and revenue for local Alaskan communities," Meyer said in a statement.

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan joined a group of fellow GOP lawmakers Thursday to blast the moves. Despite the Biden administration's approval of Willow, the White House has in other ways made it difficult for energy development to happen in the state, Sullivan said.

“The message this administration is sending to the dictators in Iran, China and Russia is this: We won't use our resources to strengthen our country — but you can use your resources to strengthen your country,” Sullivan said at a press conference Thursday. “Joe Biden is fine with our adversaries producing energy and dominating the world's critical minerals while shutting down our own in America, as long as the far-left radicals he feels are key to his reelection are satisfied. What a dangerous world this president has created.”

Alaska had been a major source of U.S. oil and gas in the past decades. But the advent of hydraulic fracturing in the mid-2000s made oil production in the lower 48 states much faster and cheaper than in previous years. As the oil industry focused its operations in Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota, Alaska went from rivaling Texas as the country’s top oil producer in the 1990s to fifth place behind Colorado now.