| President-elect Donald Trump once promised to unleash drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That never happened, but second terms are second chances for presidents to barrel through key policy priorities. That means a redoubled effort to tap Alaska’s most coveted oil field, situated in the nation’s most remote public lands. But tapping the refuge for oil — it holds as much as 10 billion barrels of crude — won’t be easy, even with White House support, as I wrote today. A first-ever sale there in 2021, shortly before Trump left office, was a bust. Drilling in the far north is expensive, and major oil firms have largely left Alaska for easier prospects. Banks and insurers have also shied away from providing funding for fossil fuel projects in the Arctic, due to environmental and climate concerns — the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the globe, according to NOAA, thawing the permafrost and displacing homes. Environmentalists and many Alaska Natives treasure the 19-million-acre untrammeled refuge and have long opposed drilling there. But others in the state say they need its hydrocarbons because Alaskan oil production has declined from historic highs, threatening the annual dividend checks that all residents receive from oil sales. The fate of ANWR’s oil program may also depend on Trump’s personnel. During the previous Trump administration, several Interior Department officials from Alaska pushed for the refuge drilling program, but the state may not be as well represented at the department this term. Trump recently passed over Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy for Interior’s top job in favor of Doug Burgum, a staunch Trump ally with deep pockets and the current Republican governor of North Dakota. Still, the new Trump administration could give ANWR a boost, by holding more oil sales in the refuge and greenlighting 3D seismic tests. Seismic testing maps the subsurface for oil and gas deposits, giving investors more confidence that they won't be drilling dry holes. But any seismic effort will be heavily opposed by environmentalists who say it could kill or injure threatened polar bears and their cubs.
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