Trump’s Oil Buddy Convinced Him to Open Alaska for Drilling

All it took was one phone call and Trump was onboard.

US Fish and Wildlife Service

This story was originally published by HuffPost and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. 

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had little interest in opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling until a friend “who’s in that world and in that business” called and told him Republicans have been trying to do so for decades. 

It was at that moment, it seems, that it became a competition.

“After that I said, ‘Oh, make sure that’s in the [tax] bill,’” Trump said during a speech at the GOP congressional retreat in West Virginia.

“I really didn’t care about it,” he added. “And then when I heard that everybody wanted it — for 40 years they’ve been trying to get it approved — I said, ‘Make sure you don’t lose ANWR.’”

Trump didn’t say who first urged him to push for opening the refuge’s 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, also known as the 1002 Area.  

The GOP tax bill passed in December includes a provision, introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), that requires Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to approve at least two lease sales for drilling—each covering no less than 400,000 acres—in the refuge’s coastal plain. The region is home to polar bears, moose and caribou, and it has been the subject of a decades-long battle between energy companies and conservationists. 

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told a rather different story shortly after Trump’s speech. In an interview with the Washington Post, Sullivan said he and Murkowski briefed the president on several Alaska issues, including ANWR, early last year and were surprised at Trump’s knowledge about the state. Trump’s grandfather reportedly worked on an 1890s route that led to the Yukon gold fields.

“He actually knew a fair amount about Alaska,” Sullivan told the Post. “It’s pretty amazing history. His grandfather was there.”

Described by some as “America’s Serengeti,” ANWR covers more than 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska. Scientistsenvironmentalists, and a bipartisan group of former Interior Department officials have warned that fossil fuel extraction there could spoil the landscape and harm the species that call it home.

The Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget, released last year, called for allowing oil and gas drilling in the coastal plain. In May, Zinke signed an order to “jump-start Alaskan energy production.” He said at the time that the move was an “important first step in a smart and measured approach to energy development in ANWR.” 

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the ANWR provision would generate slightly more than $1 billion in federal revenue over the next decade—a figure that has been widely disputed. Within the drilling leases, the measure allows for 2,000 acres of the coastal plain to be developed above ground with wells and support facilities.

In his speech Thursday, Trump called the refuge “one of the great potential fields anywhere in the world” and said drilling it is a “great opportunity for Alaska.”

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate