Category: Alaska News

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This story was originally published in the Anchorage Press. Subscribe here. 

This spring, ExxonMobil made big news in Alaska.

For years, the multinational oil giant had ignored the periodic auctions for drilling rights on public land in the state, instead investing in projects in other parts of the world like the South American nation of Guyana. Other big companies like Shell and BP had also walked away from holdings in the state — raising fears that Alaska’s oil industry was on the decline.

But in March, after a series of recent big oil discoveries in the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska, ExxonMobil came back in force, placing winning bids on two dozen leases in an auction in the federally owned area. Shell, in partnership with a Spanish oil company, also placed surprise bids of its own, as did an array of other firms that collectively offered $163 million in winning bids.

Four months later, though, the Trump administration has yet to issue most of the leases that ExxonMobil bid on and won. A federal lawsuit filed by representatives of the area’s Indigenous residents has tied up 17 of the company’s 24 plots in legal limbo — with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management blocked by a federal judge from issuing leases to the company.

Other big oil players like Shell and ConocoPhillips won leases that don’t face the same legal complications — though multiple smaller companies’ bids are also caught in the litigation.

Last month, the Trump administration stepped back from an appeal that aimed to unblock the issuing process, leaving an underlying legal dispute to play out in a lower court.

At stake is the future of a huge area of the reserve, roughly 1,500 square miles, that some companies covet for its oil-bearing potential but local residents want conserved to protect caribou that they hunt for food.

Under a deal struck with the Biden administration, oil leasing was barred in the area unless it was approved by a group representing municipal and Native entities in the Iñupiaq village of Nuiqsut, about 50 miles southeast of the lake.

The Trump administration subsequently canceled the agreement and the group sued, winning an early victory from a federal judge who restored the deal. That means the recently auctioned leases can’t, in fact, be granted in the area without the local group’s consent.

“As development continues, it becomes more important to make sure that our subsistence remains healthy and accessible,” said Roxanna Oyagak, a board member of Kuukpik, Nuiqsut’s local for-profit Native corporation, which is part of a municipal coalition participating in the litigation. “We want to make sure that future generations can have that connection going forward.”

Multiple additional lawsuits challenging other aspects of the recent auction are also playing out at the same time. If successful, the litigation could also end up overturning leases that the Trump administration awarded to ConocoPhillips and other companies earlier this year.

Supporters of development are fighting back. In one recent 80-page motion, attorneys for ConocoPhillips wrote that conservation groups have been in “perpetual disagreement” with a policy choice by U.S. Congress to set aside the petroleum reserve for oil development.

“They will never be satisfied because their long-held policy goal of impeding and preventing all oil and gas activities in Alaska (and beyond) irreconcilably clashes with Congress’s mandate for expeditious leasing and development of the Petroleum Reserve,” the brief said.

Oil, birds and caribou

The national petroleum reserve spans an area the size of Indiana on Alaska’s North Slope, and it was originally created a century ago, as the U.S. Navy was converting its fleet from coal to oil power.

While federal geologists say the area could hold billions of barrels of oil, it also encompasses sprawling wetlands and robust populations of migratory birds, polar bears and caribou.

Conservation groups call it the Western Arctic rather than the petroleum reserve, and point to a half-century-old law that directs federal land managers to protect the reserve’s fish and wildlife, and environmental and scenic values.

The reserve sits at the far western edge of the North Slope’s existing oil infrastructure, and companies hadn’t actually produced any petroleum in the area until a decade ago.

Its conflicting characteristics have spawned decades of political battles and court fights over how much of the area to open to the oil and gas industry. And recent huge petroleum discoveries there, including ConocoPhillips’ Willow project, have further charged the debate.

An Obama-era management plan protected roughly half of the reserve, while the first Trump administration opened 82% of the area to leasing.

One area that’s particularly disputed is the 300-square-mile Teshekpuk Lake and its surrounding tundra, near the reserve’s northern coastline. That spot is essential feeding and resting habitat for birds like tundra swans, bar-tailed godwits and buff-breasted sandpipers, and for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd — a population of some 60,000 animals that residents of Nuiqsut and the North Slope hub town of Utqiagvik depend on for food.

Given its ecological value and importance to traditional hunters, federal officials have long granted the Teshekpuk area special protections, though some Republican presidents, including Donald Trump, have worked to shrink them.

The Biden administration took a new approach, establishing a conservation area around the lake as part of its efforts to offset the impacts Willow — the ConocoPhillips project in the reserve, which faced strident opposition from local and national conservation groups.

In a late 2024 deal with a group representing three Nuiqsut entities — the village’s for-profit Indigenous-owned corporation, its tribal government and city government — the administration protected 1 million acres, banning oil development there without the local group’s consent.

The Biden administration structured the protections as a formal “right-of-way,” citing authority from a 1976 law, the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act.

Then, in late 2025, a top Trump administration official canceled the agreement, saying it gave Nuiqsut’s leaders illegal “veto power” over projects in an area with high oil and gas potential and that the deal blocked an “essential purpose” of the petroleum reserve. The Bureau of Land Management then said it would auction off dozens of plots around Teshekpuk Lake in the March 2026 lease sale.

In response to the cancellation, the Nuiqsut group sued, saying the Trump administration’s action had “clearcut” the government’s obligations to protect subsistence.

On the same day that bids were due in the auction, a federal judge, Sharon Gleason, restored the Biden administration’s agreement and issued a temporary ruling putting the protections back into place. The written ruling, known as an injunction, was notable because Gleason suggested the Nuiqsut group had a good chance of winning its underlying case.

But in the meantime, oil companies had placed bids — one of which exceeded $2 million — to lease land within the protected area. ExxonMobil was the highest bidder on a number of plots directly along the lake’s southwest shore; Epoch Oil and Gas, a Denver-based firm, won a large tract along the lake’s northeast edge.

Epoch and another company that bid in the conservation area subsequently contacted Nuiqsut’s Native village corporation, Kuukpik, to discuss their plans for the area, according to Andy Mack, Kuukpik’s chief executive. ExxonMobil, however, did not, he said.

“I have no idea what they’re thinking or what they’re doing,” Mack said in a recent phone interview. “If they have a plan, I don’t know what it is.”

An ExxonMobil spokesperson, Curtis Smith, declined to comment.

Legal wrangling continues

After the March auction, in written correspondence with ExxonMobil and other companies, the Trump administration said Gleason’s ruling blocked its ability to immediately issue leases in the protected area.

But it said it was “vigorously pursuing” its options, including litigation. And in May, the administration appealed Gleason’s ruling to a federal appeals court.

Then, last month, the Trump administration quietly reversed itself, dropping the appeal in a one-paragraph motion that didn’t explain why. A decision from Gleason in the underlying litigation over the Teshekpuk Lake conservation agreement is expected in the coming weeks or months, according to attorneys following the case.

In an email, a U.S. Department of the Interior official declined to comment, and would not specify what its decision means for the leases that Gleason has blocked the agency from issuing.

The Trump administration did say, in its correspondence with ExxonMobil after Gleason’s ruling, that it had requested a waiver of the Teshekpuk area oil leasing prohibitions from the Nuiqsut group.

An attorney for the Nuiqsut group, Patrick Munson, declined to comment. But officials from Kuukpik — the Indigenous corporation that’s one of the group’s members — didn’t sound inclined to consent to a waiver any time soon.

“That Teshekpuk Lake area is very important to that caribou herd, which the community really, really relies on and still hunts to this day,” said Oyagak, the Kuukpik board member.

Oyagak didn’t rule out that Kuukpik could, at some point, agree to limited development in the conservation area. But she said any such decisions would come only after engagement and conversation.

“We’d have to carefully consider important conditions with that,” Oyagak said. “It’s not about no development. We want to make sure our voices are heard and that our knowledge is included.”

She added: “We have to have a seat at the table. We have to listen to the people who live there.”

Oyagak’s corporation does have a long history of withholding support for neighboring oil developments before ultimately striking deals with petroleum companies that have made concessions — like hiring Kuukpik subsidiaries or adapting projects in response to Nuiqsut residents’ concerns.

Meanwhile, separate lawsuits filed by conservation groups aim to overturn the entire March lease sale — not just the bids in the area of Teshekpuk Lake.

Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, a Nuiqsut health advocate and former village mayor, said her nonprofit, Grandmothers Growing Goodness, is participating in one of the other suits in part because she’s not a Kuukpik shareholder and wants to make sure the community’s broader, non-corporate interests are represented in the courts.

“It’s about protecting our community overall,” Ahtuangaruak said. “It’s about making sure our community is going to be able to live in our lands and waters, and feed our families and our elders.”

The lawsuit from Ahtuangaruak’s group faces broad and vehement opposition from supporters of petroleum development.

Multiple oil companies, including ConocoPhillips, Epoch Oil and Gas and affiliates of Armstrong Oil and Gas, filed lengthy briefs last month arguing for the lease sale’s results to stand, as did attorneys for the state of Alaska.

So did the Alaska Oil and Gas Association trade group, which cited the ongoing war in Iran and resulting high oil prices in saying that the request to set aside the lease sale results is “out of step with the nation’s domestic energy needs.”

The association’s brief cited the 4,500 workers employed in Alaska’s oil industry and some $925 million in wages paid to state residents in 2024 — plus billions more in taxes and royalties collected by state government.

The reserve is one major area that companies have targeted for new projects needed to sustain or increase Alaska’s current oil production levels; if the lease sale is invalidated, the association said, it would threaten the “backbone of Alaska’s economy.”

Decisions on the broader cases are expected, also from Gleason, by mid-October.

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The Trump administration is proposing to loosen the regulation of offshore Arctic oil drilling by revoking several safety regulations put in place during the Obama administration.

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Monday that it will propose a new rule to change what it called “a burdensome regulatory framework” imposed a decade ago on oil development in federal Arctic waters.

In a statement, Interior officials said the move would encourage oil development in the region.

“President Trump has made clear that America must fully avail itself of Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential for the benefit and security of the Nation and the citizens who call Alaska home,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in the statement. “This proposed rule reflects a disciplined, mission-focused approach that strengthens regulatory efficiency, reduces unnecessary barriers and ensures that Arctic energy exploration proceeds safely, responsibly and under strong federal oversight.”  

“The Alaskan Outer Continental Shelf contains some of America’s most promising offshore resources,” Matt Giacona, Interior’s acting marine mineral administration director, said in the statement. “These targeted updates would provide clear, practical compliance options for Arctic Outer Continental Shelf exploration while preserving safeguards to protect workers, the environment and Alaska’s precious natural resources.”

The proposal drew immediate criticism from one environmental group.

“There’s no such thing as safe drilling in the Arctic Ocean, and that’s why it should never, never happen,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “Having these very stringent rules and regulations to protect the Arctic and avoid catastrophe is the bare minimum.”

Arctic conditions, that feature shifting sea ice, harsh weather and remoteness, make oil spill response virtually impossible – and they make oil exploration impractical, Freeman said.

“It’s incredibly expensive, risky, dangerous, uncertain,” he said. Alternatively, leaders could be developing renewable energy infrastructure now, but “that’s not what our federal or state leadership are focusing on, and it’s just hurting our environment, hurting the climate and hurting the pocketbooks of Alaskans.”

Details of the newly proposed rule were not available on Monday. The proposal will be published in the Federal Register in future days and subject to a 90-day public comment period after that, the Department of the Interior said in its statement.

There has been only sporadic oil exploration drilling in federal waters of the Arctic in past decades, and there has never been any oil produced from there or any part of the federally managed outer continental shelf off Alaska except for a small part of the Hilcorp-operated Northstar field, which is located mostly on state territory.

There has been no oil production in Canadian Arctic waters, either. Canada has long maintained a two-rig requirement, and oil development in Canadian Arctic waters has been barred under a  moratorium imposed in 2019.

Arctic oil policy changes

Monday’s Department of the Interior announcement is the latest episode in a back-and-forth pattern of Arctic oil policy.

The Obama-era rule standardized some requirements that had been applied to Shell’s multibillion-dollar exploration program in the early 2010s in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

That rule included a requirement that each operator have a designated backup drill rig to be available to respond to a well blowout and an integrated operating plan with steps to be taken and equipment to be used in the event of emergencies such as oil spills and extreme weather events.

The Obama-era rule went into effect in 2016, after Shell abandoned its offshore Arctic program.

The first Trump administration tried to loosen those Obama-era requirements. In a proposed rule released in 2020, the administration said it intended to relax the relief-well requirement and eliminate the requirement for an integrated operating plan among other changes.

That first Trump administration rule never went into effect. The Biden administration in 2021 rescinded the proposal, keeping the Obama-era rules in place.

The new Trump proposal, like the proposal in the first Trump term, seeks to relax the relief-well requirement and eliminate the requirement for an integrated operating plan, according to the Department of the Interior statement.

The attempt to loosen Arctic drilling rules comes as the Trump administration is pushing to expand oil development in that remote region.

The administration’s draft five-year outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing plan calls for numerous lease sales in federal Arctic waters, along with several lease sales in the Bering Sea and Bering Strait region.

That is despite President Barack Obama’s actions that withdrew the entire Chukchi Sea and much of the Beaufort Sea from the leasing program.

A previous federal court ruling struck down an earlier attempt, during the first Trump administration, to allow oil drilling in Arctic waters that Obama had withdrawn from leasing. Under the Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Act, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in 2019, presidents may withdraw territory from the leasing program but they may not add territory.

Despite Gleason’s ruling, and despite a new lawsuit filed last year over the same issue, the Trump Department of the Interior is proposing to sell oil and gas leases not only in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas but in a newly designated, farther-north offshore region it calls the “High Arctic.” U.S. rights to that High Arctic territory have yet to be internationally recognized.

One Department of the Interior agency warned in December that it lacks the resources to properly regulate an expanded Alaska offshore leasing program. In comments on the Trump administration’s draft leasing plan, the Alaska director of the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said the staff in the state was down to only four and the draft leasing plan “does not address the appropriations or staff required for any amount of additional leasing, exploration, or development activity” that the administration proposed for waters off Alaska.

The Trump administration in November reinstated expired Hilcorp offshore leases at the long-languishing Liberty project. The Biden administration in late 2024 denied Hilcorp’s request for extended time to develop the leases; it was the 12th such request made since oil was discovered there in the 1990s.

Plans for the Liberty development stretch back decades. BP, the original operator, had two general proposals, one for an artificial island to be the drill site and the second for drilling from an existing onshore area using ultra-extended-reach wells. Hilcorp, after it acquired Liberty and the operator position from BP, reverted to the artificial island concept but, as of 2024, switched to the ultra-extended-reach-drilling concept that BP had tried but rejected as unfeasible.

The Center for Biological Diversity and a Native organization, Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, have notified the Department of the Interior and its officials that they intend to sue over the reinstatement of Liberty leases. That lawsuit has not yet been filed, Freeman said.

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Early in-person voting began Monday at 10 locations in the Railbelt, Juneau and Nome for Alaska’s Aug. 18 statewide primary election. As of July 31, just under 10,000 voters had requested absentee ballots for the election, and hundreds of absentee voters had already mailed in their votes, according to figures from the Alaska Division of Elections.

What’s at stake?

This election decides the four U.S. House, U.S. Senate and governor candidates who will be in the November general election. It also decides whether Alaska will limit the amount of money that political donors can give directly to candidates.

Because the top four candidates for an office advance to the November general election — and because most of the 50 state legislative races have four or fewer candidates — the primary doesn’t mean as much for most legislative races individually.

But because the difference between a Republican-led state House and Senate and a predominantly Democratic coalition-led state House and Senate may come down to a few votes, the handful of contested legislative elections may be important.

Watch Eagle River, where incumbent Republican Rep. Jamie Allard is facing four challengers, or the eastern Mat-Su, where Dunleavy-appointed Republican Rep. Garret Nelson has five opponents. In the western Mat-Su, Republican Rep. Kevin McCabe has four challengers.

In the Senate, watch southwest Alaska, where Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, has retired and seven candidates — including current Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham — are running for the open seat.

Seven people are running for the state House seat that Edgmon is leaving open.

What’s the difference between absentee voting and early voting?

The difference is when your ID is verified. At an early voting location, a poll worker looks up your voter registration at a computer to verify that you’re registered to vote in a specific district, then hands you a ballot from that district.

You’ll want to bring a driver’s license, tribal ID or something else to verify your identity. Even a piece of mail with your current name and address will work. If the poll worker knows you, they can also verify your identity without ID.

When you vote absentee, you get a ballot for a district, then seal it inside an envelope and fill out the cover of that envelope with identity information. 

Starting Aug. 11, review boards will begin checking the information on those envelopes to verify that those absentee ballots came from registered voters. The ballots within those envelopes will be counted once the polls close Aug. 18.

Absentee ballots can be mailed to the Division of Elections, or they can be cast in person at dozens of places across the state. While there’s only 11 early voting places in Alaska, there are many, many more places to cast in-person absentee votes, including at most city clerks offices.

Which method is best?

Mailed absentee ballots will be counted as long as they’re postmarked on or before election day and reach the Division of Elections no later than Aug. 28.

In Alaska, not all mail is postmarked on the day it is mailed, so be sure to mail your ballot a few days early. 

If you’re worried about mail delays, take your absentee ballot to one of the locations listed here before election day, or do early voting in person. 

You can also fax a completed absentee ballot to the Division of Elections. If you don’t have a fax machine, you can use a scan-to-fax app on your cellphone instead.

Early voting ensures your vote gets counted, since your ID is verified up front, your ballot is already scanned and ready to be counted, and there’s a paper copy for any recounts and reviews. 

The drawback is that it’s only offered in 10 places within the state, and if you’re traveling Outside or not close to one of those 10 places, it’s not available.

What does the ballot look like?

Your ballot will have two sides. On the front side are the U.S. House and U.S. Senate races. On the back side are the governor, state House and state Senate races. There’s also an option for Ballot Measure 1. 

Pick one candidate for each race. Ranked-choice voting, when you’ll rank up to four candidates, is in November.

Use a blue or black pen to fill in the oval. Don’t use a permanent marker.

When will results be available?

The first unofficial results will be posted online about 9 p.m. on Aug. 18. Full election day totals may take a few days to arrive as rural precincts report their results. Absentee ballots will be counted day by day, with new totals expected Aug. 25 and then on Aug. 28, when the last unofficial results will be posted.

Aug. 31 is when the division expects to certify the final results. That’s also the date for any top-four candidates to withdraw, something that has happened in prior years for strategic reasons.

Lower-finishing Republicans, in particular, have been willing to drop out of the top four to ensure that only one Republican appears on the November ballot.

The post Early voting opens for Alaska’s 2026 primary election — here’s what to expect appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Since 1994, the Alaska Republican Party has sent absentee ballot applications to registered voters across the state, urging voters to cast their ballot by mail. 

The party continued the process this year, despite denunciations of mail-in voting by President Donald Trump, who has called voting by mail “cheating.”

In a mailer sent to some voters last month, the party included a partially complete absentee ballot request form and a notice urging the recipient to “advance Republicans to the general election ballot.”

Through July 31, the Alaska Division of Elections reported that 9,981 Alaskans had requested absentee ballots for the Aug. 18 statewide primary.

Of the requests, 28.5% had come from Republicans. Among the state’s 602,131 registered voters, 23.6% are Republicans. 

That indicates Republicans are seeking absentee ballots at a disproportionately higher rate than registered voters overall.

The same disproportionate pattern is true with Democrats, who generally support mail-in voting. The Alaska Democratic Party also sent out an absentee ballot request form to voters statewide. 

Of absentee requests received through July 31, 19.7% were from registered Democrats. Members of that party make up 11.6% of the state’s registered voters.

The trend across Republicans and Democrats is likely due to the fact that registering with a party means that person is at least somewhat engaged with politics and thus more likely to vote overall.

Undeclared voters — those who haven’t chosen a party affiliation — represent 49.5% of the state’s registered voters, but only 32.1% of absentee ballot requesters.

Nonpartisan voters — Alaskans who specifically chose to be separate from any political party — make up 13.6% of voters and 18.8% of all absentee ballot requesters.

Voters from the state’s minor political groups make up the remaining balance of requesters.

The deadline for an Alaskan to request a paper absentee ballot be mailed to them is Aug. 8. The deadline for requesting a blank absentee ballot be sent by email is Aug. 17. 

All absentee ballots must be postmarked — or faxed — no later than election day, Aug. 18.

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A Place for Mom reports the average memory care cost is $6,999/month, varying by state and care needs, covering housing, meals, and 24/7 supervision.