Interior Department officials moved Tuesday to open up a 23-million-acre reserve in Alaska to oil and gas drilling as the Trump administration pushes to hold the first lease sale in the area since 2019.
The Bureau of Land Management published a request for feedback about which areas within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) should be made available for leasing this winter. The call for nominations and comments was scheduled to be published Wednesday in theFederal Register.
The administration asked the public to recommend areas of the western Arctic that should be made available for leasing and also requested comments “on tracts that should receive ‘special concern and analysis.’”
The moves by BLM — which is part of Interior — to open up the wilds of Alaska to drilling emphasize how the Trump administration has prioritized its employees’ work on fossil fuel development despite the shutdown of the federal government on Oct. 1.
