3 Trump cabinet members, Alaska politicians promote 'dominance'
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that Alaska oil and gas and minerals can be developed with “teeny, teeny amounts of acres for huge amounts of opportunity.”
Burgum made the remarks in Anchorage Sunday as three Trump cabinet members began their trip to Alaska. The others are EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
“We just have to be able to do math in this country and understand that the impacts are so low. And one of the lowest land impacts is today’s modern oil and gas industry. Solar takes up huge fields and has got huge implications. Wind is got, we did wind in North Dakota, some of those were 8,000 acres,” Burgum said.
“We have to be in the mining game in this country. We have to be in the timber game in this country. We have to be in the oil and gas game in this country. If we don’t we’re going to lose the current global AI arms race that we’re in,” he said.
Alaska’s U.S. senators and Gov. Mike Dunleavy joined the cabinet members along with dozens of invited industry representatives and other state politicians to talk about development issues.
“Sunday’s two-hour roundtable was not open to the press. But after its conclusion, journalists were ushered in to listen to closing remarks by participants,” the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Sen. Dan Sullivan said he never gets tired of posing for the cameras and tearing up the one-page summary of what he claims are the “70 executive orders and executive actions” from the Biden administration “war” on Alaska.
Someone must have told him it’s a good gimmick to throw pieces of paper in the air.
He did it again Sunday in Anchorage in the Captain Cook Hotel, hoping to impress the three Trump cabinet members promoting energy “dominance,” a favorite Trump word.
As I’ve noted here before, Sullivan’s inflated list contained exactly one executive order and many insignificant actions, but it sounds better to say “70 executive orders and executive actions” for the so-called war.
On Sunday, Burgum picked up on Sullivan’s list and falsely claimed there were “70 executive orders” issued as “sanctions” against Alaska by Biden.
The single executive order was 13990, Protecting Public Health and the Environment to Tackle the Climate Crisis.
On December 8, 2021, in one of the first speeches he gave in Congress about the so-called Biden war on Alaska, Sullivan said multiple times that there were “20 executive orders in eight months” and portrayed these as sanctions or direct attacks on working families. He was harkening back to the halcyon days of Trump I.
“Imagine an administration coming in with 20 executive orders in eight months,” Sullivan said.
“The Biden administration is clearly trying to shut down my state. It’s there for everybody to see. Everybody back home knows it,” he said.
On February 7, 2023, Sullivan spoke to the Alaska Legislature about the imaginary war on Alaska.
”You all might have heard me refer to this ‘war on Alaska.’ It sounds a little harsh, I know. But this is what I mean by that: In two years, the Biden Administration has issued 44 executive orders or executive actions solely focused on our state. 44 in two years. Just Alaska.”
“No other state has gotten this kind of unwarranted attention,” Sullivan said.
No other state has 222 million acres of federal land owned collectively by the people of the United States. Like it or not, that’s the reason for the attention.
The number of alleged executive orders and other actions identified by Sullivan grew throughout Biden’s term.
It’s a selective list and a misleading one.
The Sullivan chart misleads the public into thinking that the Biden administration has buried Alaska in dozens of executive orders and separate actions.
Many of the actions are stages in a process, such as proposing blocking the Pebble mine, recommending blocking the Pebble mine and publishing a document to block the Pebble mine.
Likewise, proposing blocking roads in the Tongass,
The single executive order counts for six of the “actions.” The cancellation of ANWR oil leases is counted eight times. Blocking the Ambler road is counted six times. Restrictions on NPR-A are counted eight times. Delaying Native veterans’ allotments is counted three times.
The Willow project is counted 2 times, but Sullivan does not count the Biden action approving the Willow project.