The Trump administration took steps this week toward reopening the country’s largest tract of largely undisturbed public land to oil and gas drilling.
The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs completed its review on Wednesday of a draft rule to rescind a Biden-era regulation that banned drilling on nearly half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The draft rule now returns to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which would need to publish the proposal in the Federal Register and take public comment before finalizing.
BLM said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News that it plans to pursue removal of the Biden-era rule, but it did not provide a timeline. The Office of Management and Budget, which houses OIRA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move comes amid the Trump administration’s aggressive push to increase oil and gas activity on U.S. lands. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered agencies to encourage fossil fuel production to “unleash” American energy, and the administration has also drastically cut environmental review timelines for energy projects.
