Ranking Member Huffman Slams Trump Admin Orders to Hand Over Public Lands to Big Oil
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) released the following statement on the Interior Department’s sweeping rollbacks of protections of Alaska’s public lands:
“President Trump is running a fossil fuel fire sale—selling out Alaska’s wild places to pad Big Oil’s pockets while trampling over Indigenous communities, wildlife, and our climate future,” said Ranking Member Huffman. “This reckless push to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and expand drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve will have devastating consequences for Alaska Native communities who have fought for generations to protect their lands and way of life.
“We’ve seen this playbook before: extreme MAGA Republicans ramming through handouts for polluters, gutting protections, and leaving taxpayers to clean up the mess all while sacrificing the most ecologically sensitive areas in the nation. The reality is that new oil and gas leases won’t lower prices at the pump, won’t create sustainable jobs, and won’t make America energy independent. This is a political stunt designed to enrich the same polluters who have spent decades driving the climate crisis. The American people deserve better than this shameless corporate giveaway.”
BACKGROUND
The Trump administration’s Interior Department, under Secretary Doug Burgum, is pushing a sweeping rollback of environmental protections in Alaska, aiming to fast-track fossil fuel development across millions of acres of federally protected land. These actions, part of Executive Order 14153 and Secretary’s Order 3422, are designed to reinstate and expand oil and gas leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), while revoking public land withdrawals that could greenlight controversial projects like the Ambler Road and the Alaska Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) Pipeline.
This move represents a direct reversal of policies put in place under the Biden administration to protect these critical landscapes from exploitation. The National Petroleum Reserve, spanning 23 million acres, contains some of the most ecologically significant and intact Arctic ecosystems, including critical habitat for polar bears, migratory birds, and the Western Arctic caribou herd. The Arctic Refuge is a sacred landscape for the Gwich’in people and a globally significant calving ground for the Porcupine Caribou Herd. Drilling in these areas would have devastating consequences for Indigenous communities, wildlife, and the broader Arctic ecosystem.
These policies align with a long-standing pattern of the Trump administration putting fossil fuel interests over environmental and public health safeguards. The previous Trump administration had similarly rushed to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling in 2020, only to see major oil companies and investors reject lease sales due to overwhelming public opposition, financial risk, and legal uncertainty. Now, in a second attempt to force through their dirty energy, pro-polluter agenda, Trump’s Interior Department is doubling down on these efforts, despite economic realities that continued fossil fuel expansion is both unnecessary and unprofitable in the long term.
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