How Trump’s Executive Orders Will Impact Alaska’s Public Lands

Here’s a look at a few key actions in the executive order and what hunters, anglers, and legislators are saying about them.

In June 2024, the BLM denied permits for Canadian and Australian companies looking to construct a 211-mile private mining road across the southern edge of the Brooks Range. The road would have crossed 3,000 streams and provided access to $7.5 billion of copper deposits. Now, it’s back on the table.

The project has had a tumultuous history. In 2020, the BLM approved permits for construction to begin. But in 2022, a federal court in Alaska delayed the decision on the grounds that the road’s impacts on subsistence hunting and fishing were not adequately considered. Ultimately, it led to a re-evaluation and the 2024 permit denials.

President Trump’s new executive order places a moratorium on all activities related to the 2024 decision and reinstates the 2020 approval. Notably, however, the decision is contrary to another clause in the executive order, which directs the Department of the Interior “to consider the Alaskan cultural significance of hunting and fishing and the statutory priority of subsistence management required by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA).”

ANILCA is the reason the Ambler Road permitting went back to the drawing board to begin with. Still, the clause is an attempt to recognize the value of hunting and fishing in a document otherwise full of directives to ignore decisions already made based on the input of sportsmen in the state. “Allowing hasty and risky projects such as the Ambler Road—which costs Alaskans and public land users more than they would gain—and overwriting a public process where hunters and anglers can, and already did, voice their concerns and opposition, is unscrupulous,” said Mary Glaves, the Alaska Coordinator for Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, regarding the order.

The Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska has been in the spotlight quite a few times in recent years. In 2001, President Clinton issued the Roadless Area Conservation Policy, which banned road building, logging, and mining on large portions of National Forest lands nationwide, including 9.2 million acres in the Tongass (for more background, read this article by Donnall Thomas Jr.). The policy received overwhelming support, especially from Alaskans.

Then, in 2020, the Forest Service issued the Alaska Roadless Rule, which, contrary to the name, exempted the Tongass from federal protections. Only a few years later, in 2023, the rule was repealed under the Biden administration, restoring protections.

Now, Trump is turning the tables once again, directing the Forest Service to ignore the roadless restrictions and revert back to the 2020 directive, which allows for new resource extraction on the Tongass. In terms of broader impacts, it could be a big blow to the ecosystem. Over half of the old growth has already been logged, and some research suggests that up to 75% of all salmon commercially harvested in southeast Alaska are reared in streams on the forest. Over the years, hunters and anglers have repeatedly expressed a unified voice in favor of protecting the forest.

The 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Alaska’s North Slope is one of the most unspoiled swaths of land in North America. For years, it was the envy of oil companies, but in recent years, interest has declined, and a series of federal policies have made the prospect more difficult.

In 2023, the Biden administration announced that it had canceled the last seven oil leases in the coastal plain of the refuge due to “legal deficiencies,” and the only remaining two had been canceled and refunded at the lessees’ requests. A subsequent lease sale in 2024—required by a 2017 law—concluded earlier this month with exactly zero bids. The lack of interest reflects companies’ hesitancy to invest in the region because of its remoteness, national political volatility, and lack of funding (nearly every major bank in the US has publicly announced that they would refuse to underwrite projects on the Refuge).

However, Trump is set on bringing development to the area. In an October 2024 campaign event in Anchorage, he told the crowd, “We’re gonna tap the liquid gold that’s under there, and we’re gonna drill, baby drill. We’re going to make Alaska rich and prosperous with jobs all over the place.”

Now, he’s attempting to make quick work of it. As part of the day-one executive order, he rescinded the previous lease cancellations and has made it national policy to “issue all permits, right-of-way permits, and easements necessary for the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas from leases within the Refuge.”

No doubt, the order will remove some of the hurdles toward drilling in the area, but the question remains: will it be enough to lure oil companies in? As hunters and anglers, we can only hope not. The beauty, wildlife abundance (particularly caribou), and scale of the Refuge is difficult to comprehend, but a quick YouTube search will turn up dozens of pack rafting, fishing, and hiking videos from the region. At the very least, it’s worth doing a little research to decide for yourself just how special this place is.

When the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was passed in 1973, part of the deal was the “withdrawal” of 57 million acres of BLM land from future development, to be held for the purpose of “public interest,” including hunting, fishing, and subsistence harvest. (Though part of the Native Claims Act, these lands are for the use by all members of the public; not just native people in Alaska.) For more background on these lands—called “D1” lands—read this article.

In 2021, Trump made five public land orders mandating the removal of protections from 28 million acres of these lands. Shortly after, however, the Biden administration paused the orders on the grounds of a failure to analyze their ecological repercussions and instructed the BLM to complete environmental impact statements on them. The documents were completed in July 2024, and the BLM officially recommended revoking the five orders altogether.

Now, as part of his sweeping executive order, Trump has reinstated the orders, kicking off the process once again for opening the lands—collectively about the size of Utah—to oil, gas, logging, and mining development. The order also puts a pause on the withdrawal of lands for selection by Alaska Native Corporations, as mandated by ANCSA.

While the four orders listed above are all significant, they’re only a fraction of what has been mandated by Trump. Here are a few more.

• Mandate the development of an 11-mile road through federal wilderness lands between the communities of King Cove and Cold Bay on the Alaskan Peninsula.
• Prioritize the development of liquified natural gas, including its sale and transportation. Specifically, that means expediting a north-to-south pipeline to carry 3.1 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the North Slope across the entire state to an ocean port near Anchorage.
• Rescind protections for areas with high subsistence resource values in the National Petroleum Reserve, totaling about 13 million acres.

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers immediately denounced the executive order, portraying it as a slap in the face to hunters and anglers. “It is deeply disappointing that the administration sided with private interests and foreign entities at the expense of outdoorsmen and women across the United States. The uncompromising action to prioritize wholesale resource extraction over the conservation of tens of millions of acres of public lands across Alaska creates unnecessary conflict and picks sides in what should be a collaborative process to manage valuable public resources,” said BH President Patrick Berry in a press release.

On the flip side, Alaskan legislators, including senator Lisa Murkowski, are hailing it as a turning point for the state’s prosperity. “The policies laid out in this executive order will improve our economy, our budget, and our quality of life while simultaneously making energy more affordable and enhancing national security,” Murkowski said in a press release of her own. “Alaska is the blue chip in the United States’ energy portfolio, and I thank President Trump for helping us capitalize on our resources,” she continued. In a US Senate hearing for Doug Bergum, Trump’s recently confirmed Secretary of the Interior, Murkowski also expressed a willingness to work hand in hand to open Alaska to development. If confirmed, Bergum (North Dakota’s former governor) would be responsible for implementing many of Trump’s orders on public lands in Alaska.

On the one hand, “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” seeks to increase America’s energy independence, which many Americans support. It’s also important to understand that, by itself, this order doesn’t grant approval to all of these proposed projects. Many of them will still have to work their way through the approval process, not to mention the counts. In 2020, Trump also blocked the Pebble Mine project in Bristol Bay, reportedly at the urging of Donald Trump, Jr., who said at the time, “The headwaters of Bristol Bay and the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with.”

However, if these mines and roads do move forward, and this order indicates that the administration would like them to, they could put some of the country’s most valuable natural features at risk. Mining and drilling operations are held to high environmental standards, but they don’t come without risk. Building roads through untouched forests and sensitive tundra is damaging to the ecosystem, no matter how you dice it. Mining also poses risks to water cleanliness and aquatic organisms. It comes down to a question of values. How do we balance our hunting and fishing heritage with resource development? The answer might be different for everyone, but Trump has made it clear where he—and therefore the federal government—stands.