Alaska’s Republican senators are splitting with the Trump administration over an expansive offshore lease plan that would open large swaths of the state’s waters to drilling.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan have both contacted the Interior Department after it proposed a new five-year lease schedule that would mandate 21 sales in Alaska waters, as well as expanded drilling in the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico, also known as the Gulf of America.
The duo is particularly concerned with plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, Bering Strait and High Arctic, which the U.S. has recently claimed. They want the administration to instead focus on expanding drilling in Cook Inlet, in southern Alaska.
Sullivan said he has already talked to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and requested that lease sales not proceed in Arctic waters. The Alaska Republican said that he was particularly concerned that offshore drilling could hurt communities in the area that depend on fishing and whaling.
“He was listening,” Sullivan said of Burgum. “I mean, what they wanted to do was put out an expansive plan and then they’re going to listen. I told him it was very important to listen to the communities.”
Murkowski, similarly, said she had reached out to the Interior Department to share “concerns” with their plan.
She cited the remoteness of the Arctic region, its limited infrastructure and lack of industry interest in the area as reasons why Interior should not proceed with sales in the area.
“I appreciate where they’re going with putting everything on the table, but as we have seen with prior five-year lease sales, there have been recommendations that we take certain areas off the table,” Murkowski said in an interview.
“I’m fully expecting that we’re going to be seeing some comments that will weigh in to that effect, and you’re going to see some of these areas taken off,” she added.
Interior didn’t respond to request for comment.
Murkowski and Sullivan are generally in-sync with the administration’s pro-drilling agenda. Murkowski will call Wednesday for an initial vote on a House-passed Congressional Review Act resolution against Biden-era restrictions on onshore development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The new five-year leasing schedule, announced in late November, could see revisions before it is finalized. In its current form, it would dramatically expand the areas open to offshore drilling throughout the country.
“By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come,” Burgum said upon announcing the proposal.
In Alaska, the new leasing plan would open virtually all of the state’s waters to offshore drilling. Right now, offshore drilling is concentrated in the Cook Inlet, which Murkowski and Sullivan both support.
There has not been a federal offshore lease sale in the Arctic since 2008. During the first Trump administration, the Interior Department proposed a similarly expansive drilling program for Alaska, but efforts did not pan out.
Murkowski said she has not yet received assurances from Interior that they will limit their plan.
“They’re in the very, very early stages, of course, and just getting the public comment now. So I think we’ve still got weeks to go before we’re really going to know much more,” Murkowski said.
Florida Republicans are pressing the administration against opening areas in the eastern Gulf to drilling. Sunshine State lawmakers have long said a buffer zone is not enough to protect coastal economies.
Lawmakers along the Atlantic Seaboard also lobbied against offshore drilling. The administration took off Atlantic lease sales before releasing its plan.
Reporter Ian Stevenson contributed.
This story also appears in Energywire.
