The Biden-Harris administration is considering further restricting oil development in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A), the nation’s largest swath of public land. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will be soliciting public comment on whether to expand or designate new “special areas” in the 23-million-acre reserve. The move could extend the areas of the NPR-A that are mostly off limits to drillers and stymie new exploration for oil in the western Arctic. BLM claims it is protecting caribou and herd health, as well as other wildlife, migratory birds, and native plants. The evaluation is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s attempts to dampen oil and gas activity in the Arctic to appease environmentalists following its 2023 approval of the $8 billion Willow oil project in the national reserve. The Biden-Harris administration has targeted Alaska’s resource development opportunities 65 times, affecting the state’s energy and economic future. The Biden-Harris administration has kowtowed to environmentalists in an attempt to gain favor at the ballot box.
The NPR-A, which is an area the size of the State of Indiana, has experienced limited drilling since it was created in 1923 as a potential oil supply for the U.S. Navy. In recent years, the reserve has garnered increasing interest due to the discovery of deposits that could hold millions of barrels of oil and help reverse Alaska’s declining oil production. Oil revenues support the state’s economy and contribute to jobs and annual dividends to its citizens. Oil and gas jobs represent about one quarter of all state jobs, and generate about half of the state’s economy, while providing as much as 90 percent of state unrestricted General Fund revenues in most years and accounting for over $180 billion in total revenue since statehood.
Along the reserve’s eastern border, and near Alaska’s prolific North Slope oil fields, companies are tapping into large oil deposits. The Willow project is expected to produce up to 750 million barrels of oil, and ConocoPhillips has expressed confidence that more oil likely lies deeper into the reserve. An Australian company, 88 Energy, is also exploring a potential 1.6-billion-barrel oil discovery in NPR-A called the Peregrine prospect. The rising oil activity in the NPR-A, however, has heightened calls for greater limits on drilling from environmental groups, who have always opposed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPS) into which oil would flow.
A day before approving the Willow project last year, the Biden-Harris administration announced sweeping regulatory changes for additional protections in special areas of the NPR-A, making drilling and exploration more difficult but not banning them outright. The new rules, finalized in April, allow BLM to reevaluate the boundaries of special areas and consider new ones. BLM’s recent solicitation marks the beginning of the first of those evaluations. BLM also plans to consult with local people about the special areas and it has sent invitations to consult with Alaska Native Villages and Corporations, but a group of North Slope cities, tribes and Alaska Native corporations is already challenging previous federal restrictions on oil development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Roughly half of the NPR-A is already designated as special areas, and in some locations there are bars on drilling infrastructure or limits on new oil leasing. That includes an expansive wetland around the Teshekpuk Lake that supports caribou herds and migratory birds, which are common on Alaska’s North Slope.
ConocoPhillips, Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor (R) and a nonprofit representing Alaska’s North Slope Iñupiat sued to block the Biden administration’s NPR-A rules. The state argues that the Biden administration is “dramatically” changing the way the reserve is managed. The reserve’s management is governed by the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976, which orders the Interior Department to balance oil development with other values like conservation, wildlife protection and subsistence hunting. In response to the oil and gas industry’s interest in the NPR-A, the Trump administration in 2020 opened most of the reserve to exploration. In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration reversed that decision.
According to the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, “This latest maneuver by BLM regarding Alaska’s Petroleum Reserve is indicative of BLM’s continuing refusal to manage the Petroleum Reserve as Congress directed. Rather than follow Congress’s direction for ‘expeditious’ development of the Petroleum Reserve, the current administration — in its effort to appease Lower 48 environmental activists — is seeking to set aside large swaths as off-limits to any development.”
NPR-A Lawsuit
A coalition of North Slope local and regional governments, tribal governments and Native corporations has sued the Biden-Harris administration in the U.S. District Court in Anchorage for prohibitive environmental protections President Biden placed on the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A).The NPR-A lawsuit, filed by the organization Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, claims that the rule enacted by the Department of the Interior on April 19 should be invalidated because it resulted from a flawed process. The rule was enacted improperly because of several legal shortcomings, including the agency’s failure to conduct a full environmental impact statement, the diversion from four decades of NPR-A management that emphasized oil development and a lack of “meaningful” engagement with the people of the North Slope. The lawsuit claims the rule “turns vast swaths of the NPR-A into a de facto conservation system unit.” The new rule was proposed by the Bureau of Land Management last September and finalized in April. The group says the Biden-Harris administration’s environmental restrictions threaten to reverse progress that has improved their lives.
Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
Put in service in 1977, the 800-mile pipeline is the primary way to carry oil drilled on Alaska’s North Slope to ports, refineries and pipelines farther south. It is the lifeline of the state’s industry crisscrossing the state’s rugged terrain and keeping oil from freezing in frigid temperatures. So far, the pipeline has transported 18.7 billion barrels of oil over its lifetime. Oil flow through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System however, averaged around 470,000 barrels a day last year. The 48-inch pipeline is capable of transiting 2 million barrels per day, and once did, from Prudhoe Bay to the ice-free port of Valdez for shipping to the continental United States. At its peak, in the late 1980s, about 2 million barrels a day flowed through the line. The pipeline is looking for additional oil supplies to keep it operating since it has about 1.5 million barrels per day of available capacity. Oil production in the NPR-A can keep the pipeline viable and provide decades of oil for American consumers if the Biden-Harris administration gets out of the way. Opponents of the pipeline have sought to reduce oil produced on the North Slope, in hopes of an early closure. President Biden was one of only 5 U.S. Senators to vote against the final pipeline conference report 51 years ago in 1973, which passed 80-5.
Conclusion
The Biden-Harris administration is doing all it can to restrict new development of oil and gas in the United States despite having a wealth of those resources here and particularly in Alaska. The Biden-Harris Administration has fought economic development in Alaska beginning with its refusal to honor the law that opened ANWR, denying the state access to their own mineral lands and closing opportunities in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. In doing so, the Biden-Harris administration is depriving Americans of their public wealth, increasing energy prices and spurring on inflation.
