Category: Politics

Brian Fitzpatrick’s survival mechanism as a battleground House Republican entails occasionally distancing himself from his own MAGA-controlled party.

On Thursday he took that to the next level by voting against President Donald Trump’s megabill amid an unrelenting pressure campaign from the White House.

The head-turning move made Fitzpatrick one of just two House Republicans to buck the party on the president’s signature domestic policy legislation that some in the GOP fear is worsening their political outlook ahead of the 2026 midterms. Over the past few days, two congressional Republicans in swing seats announced they were not running for reelection. Fitzpatrick belongs to a GOP trio representing districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris captured, and Democrats are once again eyeing him as a top target next year when they try to reclaim the House.

Fitzpatrick’s break with Trump over his key legislation also carries major risks of intra-party backlash. On Thursday, some MAGA influencers were already threatening a primary challenge.

“He has now gained the ability to say, ‘I am not a rubber stamp to Trump. I will vote against his agenda when I believe it’s the right thing to do,” said Mike Conallen, Fitzpatrick’s former chief of staff. “But given the inclination of the president and his supporters to basically go after anybody who doesn’t support them, you’ve now become potentially the lighting rod for all those MAGA individuals and the president himself.”

Fitzpatrick attributed his vote to changes made by the Senate, which deepened the cuts included in initial bill language he had backed.

“I voted to strengthen Medicaid protections, to permanently extend middle-class tax cuts, for enhanced small business tax relief, and for historic investments in our border security and our military,” he said in a statement. “However, it was the Senate’s amendments to Medicaid, in addition to several other Senate provisions, that altered the analysis.”

It was a shocking move even for Fitzpatrick.

First elected in 2016, he has cultivated a brand as a moderate Republican who supported former President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package, won the endorsement of a major gun-control group, and regularly visited mosques in his district. He has at times even downplayed his affiliation with the Republican Party, calling himself “a fiercely independent voice.” His X header reads, “Defend Democracy. Vote Bipartisan.”

Still, many Republicans were shocked Wednesday night when he broke with the party on a procedural vote to move the legislation to a final vote, particularly because he had backed the earlier version of it weeks prior. They said he had not explained his opposition to them, even as other initially resistant Republicans went public with their concerns.

“I was surprised,” Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.) said. “And I do not know what his objection was.”

Some speculated his stance might be related to a letter he wrote to Trump this week opposing the administration’s halt of some weapons to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Fitzpatrick’s curveball briefly set off a scramble to find him, with the congressman reportedly bolting from the chamber and House Speaker Mike Johnson appearing to tell Fox News he was looking for him. Even some of Fitzpatrick’s fellow members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation were taken aback by his decision.

“You’ll have to ask him,” Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), who is eyeing a gubernatorial run, said in response to a question about the vote.

A Democrat hasn’t held Fitzpatrick’s prized Bucks County-based seat since his late brother, Mike Fitzpatrick, reclaimed it from then-Rep. Patrick Murphy in 2010. In the past, Democrats have fielded candidates who lacked electoral experience or were an otherwise imperfect fit to take on this durable incumbent. But they believe they have finally recruited a top contender to run against Fitzpatrick in a county commissioner named Bob Harvie, who has shown the ability to win the battleground county, which comprises most of the district.

“They’re scared. They know this bill is unpopular,” Harvie said of Republicans, arguing Fitzpatrick’s vote was “too little, too late” and “the only reason it got to the Senate is because he voted for it.”

A pro-Fitzpatrick super PAC, Defending America PAC, quickly released a statement Thursday casting the vote as proof of his bipartisan leanings and touting his record of “winning a seat for Republicans in a district carried by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton,” and slamming Harvie for “bitching and moaning with no solutions of his own.”

Even for Fitzpatrick, though, his vote was particularly a lonely one.

Only he and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a longtime gadfly for Trump, voted against the megabill on Thursday. And Fitzpatrick was the sole Republican who did not support clearing Wednesday night’s procedural hurdle to advance the bill and didn’t back down under pressure. A handful of other Republicans initially cast votes against it, but switched them at the last minute.

Fitzpatrick’s allies said he’s proven adept at navigating the complicated political cross-currents in his swing district. And sometimes, they said, that means upsetting his party.

“Working with Brian over the years, he’s very aware of his district,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.). “And he’s very aware of where he should be when he’s representing them.”

Kelly said Thursday he has not spoken with Fitzpatrick about his vote but has “no problem” with it.

Some MAGA activists weren’t as forgiving.

Conservative influencer Nick Sortor posted on the social media platform X on Wednesday, “ATTENTION PEOPLE OF PENNSYLVANIA’S 1ST DISTRICT: Your Congressman @RepBrianFitz SOLD YOU OUT.”

Pro-Trump activist Scott Presler likewise wrote on X, “Yes, I am aware that Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA01) voted NO to the Big Beautiful Bill. Message received. CC: Bucks County.”

Democrats would be delighted if Fitzpatrick faced a messy, expensive primary.

Fitzpatrick has easily fended off challenges from Republicans running to his right. But they have lacked institutional support — namely Trump’s endorsement. Trump and his operation backing a primary opponent would present a new challenge for Fitzpatrick.

For weeks Trump has attacked Massie and promised to try to oust him, while his team launched a super PAC to unseat him.

The criticism from the White House was relatively tame in the hours after Fitzpatrick’s dissent. Trump told reporters that he was “disappointed” by the lawmaker’s vote, but declined to immediately call for a primary challenge. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

And Republican House leaders appear to be sticking by Fitzpatrick. After eventually finding him, Johnson told reporters he had spoken with him “at length” and “he just has convictions about certain provisions of the bill — he’s entitled to that.”

But Fitzpatrick’s opposition extends beyond his usual maneuvers, thus presenting a test for the modern-day GOP: Can a party that demands total loyalty to Trump stomach someone who occasionally defies the president in order to keep their congressional majority?

More often than not in recent years, the answer to that question has been no.

Rep. Don Bacon, a frequent Trump critic who represents another Harris district in Nebraska, announced this week that he would not run for reelection. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina also said Sunday he’d step down after Trump vowed to back a primary challenger against him because he opposed the megabill.

​Politics

Democrats believe President Donald Trump’s tax-and-spend megabill gives them a heavy cudgel ahead of the 2026 midterms. Now they have to effectively wield it as they try to reclaim the House.

Ad-makers have quickly prepped attack ads to air as soon as the holiday weekend is over, including in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. House Democrats are plotting to turn the August recess into the opening salvo of the midterms, including through town halls and organizing programs.

And Democrats see an opportunity to expand the battleground, going on offense into red areas across the country. The bill that passed Thursday has already triggered a spike in candidate interest deep into Trump territory, House Majority PAC said. Separately, Democrats are digging into a round of candidate recruitment targeting a half-dozen House districts Trump won by high single or double digits, according to a person directly familiar with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s plan and granted anonymity to describe private conversations. They’re recruiting Democrats to challenge Reps. Ann Wagner of Missouri, Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Kevin Kiley of California, Nick LaLota of New York and Jeff Crank of Colorado

“There’s almost nothing about this bill that I’m going [to] have a hard time explaining to the district,” said Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who represents a district Trump won by 9 points. “This is a giant tax giveaway to wealthy people. Everyone fucking knows it.”

Democrats’ renewed bravado comes after months in the political wilderness, following sweeping losses across the country last year. And it’s not just the megabill’s consequences that give them electoral hope.

Leading to Thursday’s vote was a series of moves they believe portend success: North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who criticized the bill for its steep Medicaid cuts before voting against it, announced his plans to not seek reelection last weekend. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who represents one of the three GOP-held districts that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, also announced his plans to not run for reelection. That opened up two top midterm battleground races in one weekend.

Democrats have also been far more in sync with their pushback in recent days after months of struggling to unify around a coherent message during Trump’s second term. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ record-setting speech on the House floor Thursday morning mirrored those of several Democratic candidates who mentioned Medicaid cuts in their campaign launches this week.

Next they have to spread the message farther, as polling shows many Americans aren’t yet aware of the megabill and its $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs. And Democrats privately acknowledge that as voters learn more, the party needs to stretch its House battlefield to chart a path back to power.

“No Democrat is going to nationally define this bill in six weeks, so we have to build a drumbeat. You do that by having 70 to 75 campaigns, because then you’re localizing the attack across the country,” the person directly familiar with the DCCC’s plans said. “We don’t have that yet. In reality, there are maybe 24 to 30 districts with good campaigns going right now.”

Tina Shah, a doctor who launched her bid against Rep. Tom Kean (R-N.J.) this week, attacked Republicans for “gut[ting] Medicaid,” and Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL who is challenging Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), said “the price of healthcare is gonna go up … all to line the pocketbooks of billionaires.”

Some Democratic strategists are urging the party to capitalize on this momentum even more aggressively.

“We need to be doing early, paid communications on this — not just the same old cable buys, token digital buys in swing districts and press conferences,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic consultant who served as the DCCC’s political director in 2014 and 2016. “Democrats need to take some risks here, mobilize early, spend money they may not have because voters’ views harden over time, and this is when we can shape it.”

In 2024, Democrats failed to break through with their message after President Joe Biden dug the party into a hole with voters on the economy. Trump successfully cast himself as focused on bringing down costs while painting Kamala Harris as overly obsessed with social issues like protecting transgender people. Harris, for her part, ran a scatter-shot, three-month messaging blitz that jumped from cost-of-living to abortion rights to Trump’s threats to democracy, which ultimately didn’t move voters.

Republicans, for their part, plan to emphasize the megabill’s tax cuts, especially those on tips and overtime, and increased funding for border security. On Medicaid cuts, they hope to neutralize Democrats’ attacks by casting them as reforms: tightened work requirements and efforts to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, a pair of Medicaid-related changes that generally polls well among voters.

“This vote cemented House Democrats’ image as elitist, disconnected, snobby, unconcerned with the problems Americans face in their daily lives, and most of all — out of touch,” said NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella in a statement. “House Republicans will be relentless in making this vote the defining issue of 2026, and we will use every tool to show voters that Republicans stood with them while House Democrats sold them out.”

But as Republicans look to sell their bill, public polling on it is bleak. Most Americans disapprove of it, in some polls by a two-to-one margin, according to surveys conducted by Quinnipiac University, The Washington Post, Pew Research and Fox News.

Meanwhile a pair of Democratic groups, Priorities USA and Navigator Research, released surveys this week showing majorities of voters aren’t fully aware of the megabill. Nearly half of Americans said they hadn’t heard anything about the bill, according to Priorities USA, a major Democratic super PAC. Of those who had heard about it, only 8 percent said they knew Medicaid cuts were included in the legislation.

Two-thirds of survey respondents who self-identified as passive or avoidant news consumers, the kinds of tuned out and low-information voters Democrats failed to win in 2024, said they knew nothing about the bill.

“We have a lot more work to do as a party to communicate the impacts of this bill to voters who are tuning out politics,” said Danielle Butterfield, Priorities USA executive director.

Butterfield urged Democrats to “get beyond the stats” and “start collecting storytellers.” Then, start putting ads online, particularly on YouTube, not just traditional TV ads.

“We need to put a face on this as soon as possible,” she said.

Among those potential faces is Nathan Sage, a first-time candidate and Iraq War veteran who is challenging Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. Sage grew up occasionally relying on food assistance, another program that will be cut in the GOP bill, and has said he’s already hearing from Iowans who “feel that they were duped into believing the Republican agenda when it first came out, because they were talking about no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime. That’s things that working class people want.”

“Until they start hearing [how it] is actually going to affect them, when they do hear that, that’s when the outrage happens,” Sage said in an interview.

Iowa, once a perennial battleground, is now solidly red, as Democrats have consistently lost white, working class voters there. Sage and Democratic pollster Brian Stryker argued the megabill opens a path to winning them back

The Medicaid cuts “enable us to have an issue that’s salient, substantive that’s on the side of working class people,” Stryker said. In 2024, 49 percent of Medicaid recipients voted for Trump, while 47 percent backed Harris, according to polling from Morning Consult.

“I hope that this does wake up the working class, does wake up people to understand — listen, they don’t care about us,” Sage said, “and the only way that we are ever going to get out of the situation is to elect working class candidates to represent us, to fight for us, because they are us.”

Andrew Howard contributed reporting. 

​Politics

Based on pronouncements in 2024, you might think now is the time to see U.S. citizens streaming out of the country. Months before the 2024 presidential election, Americans were saying they would leave should candidate Donald Trump win the election. Gallup polling in 2024 found that 21% of Americans wanted to leave the United States permanently, more than double the 10% who had said so in 2011.

And indeed in June 2025, a Vermont legislator announced that she was resigning her seat and moving to Canada because of political concerns and economic opportunities. To be sure, people are moving. Even so, as a scholar of American migration overseas, my research finds that the vast majority of Americans are not about to depart for greener shores.

A western Massachusetts group

In October 2024, I surveyed 68 Americans in western Massachusetts, an area with a slight Democratic majority, asking if they wanted to leave the United States for a lengthy period of time, but not necessarily permanently. Over 90% said no, noting that there were factors limiting their mobility, such as financial obligations or having a partner who would not move, and that there were reasons that made them want to stay, such as owning property and having friends nearby.

Just three respondents indicated they were making plans to move, while an additional 11 said they wanted to move “someday.”

Reality strikes

After the November 2024 election, I interviewed seven of those respondents, two of whom had said prior to the election that they might leave the United States. After the election, they all said they planned to stay.

One who had said she wanted to leave acknowledged her reversal, saying: “I may have flippantly said, ‘Oh, if (Trump) gets voted in … I would leave,’ but I can’t see leaving. Part of it is because of my daughter,” who had recently become a mother. She continued, “It’s never crossed my mind seriously enough to even research it.”

Another told me, “I’m not going to let somebody push me out of what I consider my country and my home because he’s a jerk.”

Others spoke of needing to work several more years in order to receive a pension, or having family responsibilities keeping them in the country. None supported the current administration.

On a national level

In two nationally representative surveys, my colleague Helen B. Marrow, a sociologist of immigration, and I found no significant increase in migration aspiration between 2014 and 2019. We also found that respondents mentioned exploration and adventure much more often than political or economic reasons for wanting to move abroad.

Even though the U.S. passport grants visa-free visitor access to more than 180 countries, U.S. citizens still need residence and work visas. At home, they, like others, have family commitments and financial constraints, or may just not want to leave home. More than 95% of the world’s population do not move abroad – and U.S. citizens are no different.

Relocation coaching

In addition to my academic research on overseas Americans, I am also an international relocation coach. I help Americans considering a move abroad navigate the emotional, practical and professional complexities of relocation, whether they’re just starting to explore the idea or actively planning their next steps.

Many of my clients do not want to live in a United States that no longer aligns with their values, while others are concerned about their safety, particularly, but not only, due to racism or homophobia. They are finding jobs overseas, retiring abroad or acquiring a European citizenship through a parent or grandparent. Most recently, American academics seeking to leave are being courted by European universities.

But most are staying

In February 2025, a national poll found that 4% of Americans said they were “definitely planning to move” to another country.

That same month, I followed up with my seven interviewees from western Massachusetts, including one trans man. They all reiterated their choice to remain in the United States. One person, who might move abroad at some point, told me she hadn’t changed her mind about leaving soon: “Leaving doesn’t necessarily mean anything will be better for me, even if it was a financial possibility.”

Two people said that recent political developments actually meant that they were more committed to remaining in the United States. One told me, “Now, more than ever, individuals need to figure out what small actions can be taken to help our fellow Americans get through this dark period.”

But even those “definitely planning on moving” can have other factors intervene. Two clients of mine who were making serious plans had to stop when family members’ health situations changed for the worse.

So how many people are actually leaving? It is clear that a growing number of Americans are considering a move abroad. But far fewer are conducting serious research, seeking professional consultation or actually moving. Drawing on available data, my own academic research and my coaching experience, my educated estimate is that no more than 1% to 2% of U.S. citizens are actively making viable plans to leave the country. Nor are all of those leaving out of protest; many are still motivated by exploration, adventure, employment or to be with a partner.

Even so, that figure is roughly 3 million to 6 million people – which would be a significant increase over the estimated 5.5 million Americans currently living abroad. As with many migration flows, even the movement of a small percentage of a population can still have the potential to reshape both the United States and its overseas population.

Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The U.S. Air Force dropped a dozen ground-penetrating bombs, each weighing 30,000 pounds (13,607 kilograms), in a raid on Iran’s nuclear site at Fordo on June 21, 2025. The attack was an attempt to reach the uranium enrichment facility buried deep inside a mountain. The target, President Donald Trump declared, was “completely and totally obliterated.”

Others were less sure. On June 24, the administration canceled a classified intelligence briefing to members of Congress, leading to frustration among those with questions about White House claims. While Defense Intelligence Agency analysts apparently agree that the strikes did real damage, they dispute the idea that the attack permanently destroyed Iran’s enrichment capability. Reports emerged that their initial analysis found that the strikes had only set Iran back a few months.

Such disagreements are unsurprising. Battle damage assessment – originally called bomb damage assessment – is notoriously difficult, and past wars have featured intense controversies among military and intelligence professionals. In World War II, poor weather and the limits of available technology conspired against accuracy.

Battle damage assessment remained a thorny problem decades later, even after radical improvements in surveillance technology. In the first Gulf War in 1990, for example, military leaders argued with CIA officials over the effects of airstrikes against Iraq’s armored forces.

I am a scholar of international relations who studies intelligence and strategy in international conflicts, and the author of “Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence.” I know from history that overcoming the challenges of battle damage assessment is especially hard when the target is a facility hidden under hundreds of feet of earth and rock, as is the case at Fordo.

Tools of the trade

The intelligence community has a number of tools and techniques that can help with challenges like assessing the damage at Fordo. Imagery intelligence such as satellite photography is the obvious starting point. Before-and-after comparisons might reveal collapsed tunnels or topographical changes, suggesting unseen subterranean damage.

More exotic data collection techniques may be able to help infer the underground effects based on particle and electromagnetic emissions from the site. These platforms provide what is called measurement and signatures intelligence. Specialized sensors can measure nuclear radiation, seismographic information and other potentially revealing information from camouflaged facilities. When combined with traditional imagery, measurement and signatures intelligence can provide a more detailed model of the likely effects of the bombing.

Other sources may prove useful as well. Reporting from human intelligence assets – spies or unwitting informers with firsthand or secondhand knowledge – may provide information on internal Iranian assessments. These may be particularly valuable because Iranian officials presumably know how much equipment was removed in advance, as well as the location of previously enriched uranium.

The same is true for signals intelligence, which intercepts and interprets communications. Ideally, battle damage assessment will become more comprehensive and accurate as these sources of intelligence are integrated into a single assessment.

Pervasive uncertainty

But even in that case, it will still be difficult to estimate the broader effects on Iran’s nuclear program. Measuring the immediate physical effects on Fordo and other nuclear sites is a kind of puzzle, or a problem that can be solved with sufficient evidence. Estimating the long-term effects on Iranian policy is a mystery, or a problem that cannot be solved even with abundant information on hand. It’s impossible to know how Iran’s leaders will adapt over time to their changing circumstances. They themselves cannot know either; perceptions of the future are inherently uncertain.

Regarding the puzzle over Fordo, Trump seems to believe that the sheer volume of explosives dropped on the site must have done the job. As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt put it: “Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”

But the fact that Fordo is buried in the side of a mountain is a reason to doubt this commonsense conclusion. In addition, Iran may have moved enriched uranium and specialized equipment from the site in advance, limiting the effects on its nuclear program.

Trump’s instincts might be right. Or the skeptics might be right. Both make plausible claims. Analysts will need more intelligence from more sources to make a confident judgment about the effects on Fordo and on Iran’s broader nuclear efforts. Even then, it is likely that they will disagree on the effects, because this requires making predictions.

Politicized intelligence

In a perfect world, policymakers and intelligence officials would wrestle with dueling assessments in good faith. Such a process would take place outside the political fray, giving both sides the opportunity to offer criticism without being accused of political mischief. In this idealized scenario, policymakers could use reasonable intelligence conclusions to inform their decision-making process. After all, there are a lot of decisions about Middle Eastern security left to be made.

But we are not in a perfect world, and hopes for a good faith debate seem hopelessly naïve. Already the battle lines are being drawn. Congressional Democrats are suspicious that the administration is being disingenuous about Iran. The White House, for its part, is going on the offensive. “The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump,” Leavitt declared in a written statement, “and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission.”

Relations between policymakers and their intelligence advisers are often contentious, and U.S. presidents have a long history of clashing with spy chiefs. But intelligence-policy relations today are in a particularly dismal state. Trump bears the most responsibility, given his repeated disparagement of intelligence officials. For example, he dismissed the congressional testimony on Iran from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard: “I don’t care what she said.”

The problem goes deeper than the president, however. Intelligence-policy relations in a democracy are difficult because of the persuasive power of secret information. Policymakers fear that intelligence officials who control secrets might use them to undermine the policymakers’ plans. Intelligence officials worry that the policymakers will bully them into giving politically convenient answers. Such fears led to intelligence-policy breakdowns over estimates of enemy strength in the Vietnam War and estimates of Soviet missile capabilities in the early years of detente.

This mutual suspicion has become progressively worse since the end of the Cold War, as secret intelligence has become increasingly public. Intelligence leaders have become recognizable public figures, and intelligence judgments on current issues are often quickly declassified. The public now expects to have access to intelligence findings, and this has helped turn intelligence into a political football.

What lies ahead

What does all this mean for intelligence on Iran? Trump might ignore assessments he dislikes, given his history with intelligence. But the acrimonious public dispute over the Fordo strike may lead the White House to pressure intelligence leaders to toe the line, especially if critics demand a public accounting of secret intelligence.

Such an outcome would benefit nobody. The public would not have a better sense of the questions surrounding Iran’s nuclear effort, the intelligence community would suffer a serious blow to its reputation, and the administration’s efforts to use intelligence in public might backfire, as was the case for the George W. Bush administration after the war in Iraq.

As with military campaigns, episodes of politicizing intelligence have lasting and sometimes unforeseen consequences.

Joshua Rovner is associate professor of international relations at American University, and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

In his second term, President Donald Trump has not taken many actions that draw near-universal praise from across the political spectrum. But there is at least one of these political anomalies, and it illustrates the broad appeal of environmental protection and conservation projects – particularly when it concerns an ecosystem of vital importance to millions of Americans.

In May 2025, Trump issued a presidential memorandum supporting the construction of a physical barrier that is key to keeping invasive carp out of the Great Lakes. These fish have made their way up the Mississippi River system and could have dire ecological consequences if they enter the Great Lakes.

It was not a given that Trump would back this project, which had long been supported by environmental and conservation organizations. But two very different strategies from two Democratic governors – both potential presidential candidates in 2028 – reflected the importance of the Great Lakes to America.

As a water policy and politics scholar focused on the Great Lakes, I see this development not only as an environmental and conservation milestone, but also a potential pathway for more political unity in the U.S.

A feared invasion

Perhaps nothing alarms Great Lakes ecologists more than the potential for invasive carp from Asia to establish a breeding population in the Great Lakes. These fish were intentionally introduced in the U.S. Southeast by private fish farm and wastewater treatment operators as a means to control algae in aquaculture and sewage treatment ponds. Sometime in the 1990s, the fish escaped from those ponds and moved rapidly up the Mississippi River system, including into the Illinois River, which connects to the Great Lakes.

Sometimes said to “breed like mosquitoes and eat like hogs,” these fish can consume up to 40% of their body weight each day, outcompeting many native species and literally sucking up other species and food sources.

Studies of Lake Erie, for example, predict that if the carp enter and thrive, they could make up approximately one-third of the fish biomass of the entire lake within 20 years, replacing popular sportfishing species such as walleye and other ecologically and economically important species.

Invasive carp are generally not eaten in the U.S. and are not desirable for sportfishing. In fact, silver carp have a propensity to jump up to 10 feet out of the water when startled by a boat motor. That can make parts of the Illinois River, which is packed with the invasive fish, almost impossible to fish or even maneuver a boat.

The Brandon Road Lock and Dam solution

Originally, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River were not connected to each other. But in 1900, the city of Chicago connected them to avoid sending its sewage into Lake Michigan, from which the city draws its drinking water.

The most complete way to block the carp from invading the Great Lakes would be to undo that connection – but that would recreate sewage and flooding issues for Chicago, or require other expensive infrastructure upgrades. The more practical, short-term alternative is to modify the historic Brandon Road Lock and Dam in Joliet, Illinois, by adding several obstacles that together would block the carp from swimming farther upriver toward the Great Lakes.

The barrier, estimated to cost US$1.15 billion, was authorized by Congress in 2020 and 2022 after many years of intense planning and negotiations. For the first phase of construction, the project received $226 million in federal money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to complement $114 million in state funding – $64 million from Michigan and $50 million from Illinois.

On the first day of Trump’s second term, however, he paused a wide swath of federal funding, including funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. And that’s when two different political strategies emerged.

Pritzker vs. Whitmer vs. Trump

Illinois, a state that has voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992, has the most financially at stake in the Brandon Road project because the project requires the state to acquire land and operate the barrier. When Trump issued his order, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, postponed the purchase of a key piece of land, blaming the “Trump Administration’s lack of clarity and commitment” to the project. Pritzker essentially dared Trump to be the reason for the collapse of the Great Lakes ecosystem and fisheries.

Another Democrat, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a swing state with the most at stake economically and ecologically if these carp species enter the Great Lakes, took a very different approach. She went to the White House to talk with Trump about invasive carp and other issues. She defended her nonconfrontational approach to critics, though she also hid her face from cameras when Trump surprised her with an Oval Office press conference. When Trump visited Michigan, she stood beside him as they praised each other.

When Trump released the federal funding in early May, Pritzker kept up his adversarial language, saying he was “glad that the Trump administration heard our calls … and decided to finally meet their obligation.” Whitmer stayed more conciliatory, calling the funding decision a “huge win that will protect our Great Lakes and secure our economy.” She said she was “grateful to the president for his commitment.”

Why unity on carp?

Whether coordinated or not, the net result of Pritzker’s and Whitmer’s actions drew praise from both sides of the aisle but was little noticed nationally.

Trump’s support for the project was a rare moment of political unity and an extremely unusual example of leading Democrats being on the same page as Trump. I attribute this surprising outcome to two key factors.

First, the Great Lakes region holds disproportionate power in presidential elections. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have backed the eventual winner in every presidential race for the past 20 years. This swing state power has been used by advocates and state political leaders to drive funding for Great Lakes protection for many years.

Second, Great Lakes are the uniting force in the region. According to polling from the International Joint Commission, the binational body charged with overseeing waterways that cross the U.S.-Canada border, there is “nearly unanimous support (96%) for the importance of government investment in Great Lakes protections” from residents of the region.

There aren’t any other issues with such high voter resonance, so politicians want to be sure Great Lakes voters are happy. For example, Vice President JD Vance has been particularly vocal about the Great Lakes. And Great Lakes restoration funding was one of the few things in the presidential budget that Democrats and Republicans agreed on.

Both Pritzker and Whitmer likely had state-based and national motivations in mind and big aspirations at stake.

Their combined effort has put the project back on track: As of May 12, 2025, Pritzker authorized Illinois to sign the land-purchase agreement he had paused back in February.

And perhaps the governors have identified a new area for unity in a divided United States: Conservation and environmental issues have broad public support, particularly when they involve iconic natural resources, shared values and popular outdoor pursuits such as fishing and boating. Even when political strategies diverge, the results can bring bipartisan satisfaction.

Mike Shriberg was previously the Great Lakes Regional Executive Director of the National Wildlife Federation, which entailed being a co-chair (and, for part of the time, Director) of the Healing Our Waters – Great Lakes Coalition.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a series of raids throughout Los Angeles and Southern California in early June 2025, sparking protests in downtown Los Angeles and other cities, including New York, Chicago and Austin, Texas.

Some demonstrators expressed growing frustration with ICE by showcasing the Mexican flag, which has become the defining symbol of the protests in Los Angeles.

The use of the flag has also become the subject of intense debate in the media.

Some outlets have depicted the flag as symbolizing ethnic pride, solidarity with immigrants and opposition to the Trump administration.

Others have called it the “perfect propaganda” tool for Republicans and conservatives, some of whom have referred to the Mexican flag as the “confederate banner of the L.A. riots.” They point to its use as evidence of anarchy and a city taken over by immigrants.

But what do Americans think about protesters waving the Mexican flag, and why?

Much of our knowledge surrounding this question is based on the 2006 immigrant rights protests across the United States, which occurred in a much less politically polarized era. Additionally, a vast majority of protesters then brought U.S. flags compared with other national flags, including the Mexican flag.

Research published in 2010 found that even though the public was more likely to be bothered by protesters waving the Mexican flag than the U.S. flag, that difference was largely absent once you divided the public into subgroups, including white people, Latinos and immigrants.

To reexamine public attitudes toward protesters waving the Mexican flag, we conducted an online survey experiment among 10,145 U.S. adults in 2016.

As political scientists who specialize in Latino politics and immigration-related issues, we tested how exposure to the Mexican flag versus the American flag shaped opinion about protests during Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016.

We found that even though much of the public continued to be less bothered by the American flag than the Mexican flag, there were also important and perhaps surprising differences in protest attitudes between white Americans and other racial and ethnic groups.

More or less bothered

In the study, we randomly divided respondents into two groups: a treatment group and a control group. Respondents in the treatment group were shown an image of protesters waving a Mexican flag. Respondents in the control group were shown an image of protesters waving the U.S. flag. After viewing the image, respondents were then asked about the extent to which they supported or were bothered by the protests.

Overall, 41% of the respondents said they were bothered by protesters waving the Mexican flag, and 28% said protesters waving the U.S. flag bothered them.

Our results show important differences in opinion between racial and ethnic groups.

White respondents were more likely than any other racial and ethnic group to say they were bothered by protesters waving Mexican flags. Sixty-nine percent of white respondents said they were bothered, 31 percentage points more than the average of nonwhite respondents.

However, 51% of white respondents were also bothered by the image of protesters waving U.S. flags. By contrast, just 20% of Latinos, 33% of Black Americans and 34% of Asian Americans said they were bothered by protesters waving U.S. flags.

Put differently, large majorities of nonwhite respondents were supportive of showing U.S. flags at protests despite their more positive views toward Mexican flags.

What explains racial differences?

When taking a deeper look at what causes Americans to feel bothered about protesters waving Mexican flags, some clear patterns emerge.

On average, older Americans were more likely to be bothered relative to younger Americans. This was particularly true for Americans over 40 years of age compared with millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, and Gen Z respondents, born between 1997 and 2012.

However, there are some nuances when examining age groups and whether they had attended a protest, march or rally in the previous year.

Our findings suggest that older Americans who had not engaged in protests were most likely to be bothered when they saw images of protesters waving Mexican flags. Millennials and Gen Z respondents who participated in a protest were least likely to be bothered.

Given that this issue intersects nationality, race, ethnicity, gender and citizenship status, it’s logical that these factors explained why Americans supported or opposed the use of Mexican flags at immigration protests.

For example, racial minorities who have a stronger sense of ethnic or racial identity were more likely to be supportive of protesters waving Mexican and U.S. flags. In other words, group identity is a strong predictor of support for protests in general, regardless of what flag is being flown.

However, minorities who lack a sense of ethnic pride and identity were most likely to be upset when they saw others expressing their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.

The reality is that recent immigration protests across the country are the first time many of the Latino youth who are citizens have participated in these types of protests. Anyone under age 22 would not have memory of, or been alive during, the last large pro-immigrant protests in 2006.

The Mexican flag represents more than nationalistic pride. It represents their parents’ heritage, hard work and their binational experience as Americans engaged in politics.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

“Bill Moyers? He’s spectacular!” George Clooney said – and no wonder.

I mentioned this legendary television journalist to the actor and filmmaker after Clooney emerged from the Broadway theater where he just had been portraying another news icon: Edward R. Murrow. Or as the Museum of Broadcast Communications put it in a tribute to Moyers, he was “one of the few broadcast journalists who might be said to approach the stature of Edward R. Murrow. If Murrow founded broadcast journalism, Moyers significantly extended its traditions.”

Moyers, who died at 91 on June 26, 2025, was among the most acclaimed broadcast journalists of the 20th century. He’s known for TV news shows that exposed the role of big money in politics and episodes that drew attention to unsung defenders of democracy, such as community organizer Ernesto Cortés Jr..

Earlier in his life, Moyers served in significant roles in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, but his fame comes from his journalism.

Making a connection

Despite his prominence, Moyers was the same down-to-earth guy in person as he seemed to be on the screen. In 1986, he was commanding a television audience of millions, and I was a historian at home with a preschooler, teaching the occasional college course in a dismal job market. Seeing that Moyers would be speaking at the conference on President Lyndon B. Johnson where I would be giving a paper, I wrote to him.

To my utter amazement, he replied and then showed up to hear my paper, on Johnson’s experiences as a young principal of the “Mexican” school in Cotulla, Texas, where he championed his students but also forged links to segregationists. Cotulla was “seminal” to LBJ’s development, Moyers said. In 1993, he recommended me for a grant that helped me finish a book: “LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of Power.

A few years later, he asked me to head up a project researching the documents related to his time in Johnson’s administration. His memoir of the Johnson years never materialized. Instead, I edited the bestselling ”Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times.“

Part of what always impressed me about Moyers was his belief that what matters is not how close you are to power, but how close you are to reality.

‘Amazing Grace’

Moyers didn’t just dwell on politics and policy as a journalist. He also delved into the meaning of creativity and the life of the mind. Many of his most moving interviews spotlighted scientists, novelists and other exceptional people.

He was also arguably among the best reporters on the religion beat. Even if it wasn’t always the main focus of his work or what comes to mind for those familiar with his legacy, still, he was a lifelong spiritual seeker.

This is hardly surprising: Moyers had degrees in both divinity and journalism. As a young man, he briefly served as a Baptist minister.

He once told me that his favorite of the many programs that he produced was the PBS documentary ”Amazing Grace.“ It featured inspiring renditions of this popular Christian hymn as performed by country legend Johnny Cash, folk icon Judy Collins, opera diva Jessye Norman and other musical geniuses. As they share with Moyers their personal connections to this song of redemption, he draws viewers into the stirring saga of its creator, John Newton: a slave trader who became an abolitionist through “amazing grace.”

Life’s ultimate questions

This appreciation of the ineffable clearly informed Moyers’ blockbuster TV series exploring life’s ultimate questions, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth.”

His interviews with Campbell, a comparative mythologist, evoked moments that made time stand still, and this reminded me of Thomas Merton, the American monk and poet, writing, “Everything is emptiness and everything is compassion” on beholding the immense Polonnaruwa Buddhas of Sri Lanka.

To my surprise, Moyers knew about this Trappist monk, telling me, “I always wished that I could have interviewed Merton,” who died in 1968.

It turned out that Moyers had been introduced to Merton by Sargent Shriver, founding director of the Peace Corps, where Moyers was a founding organizer and the deputy director.

Mentored by LBJ

Moyers characterized his Peace Corps years as the most rewarding of his life. When Johnson, his mentor, became president, he asked Moyers to join the White House staff. Moyers turned down the offer, so Johnson made it a presidential command.

The wunderkind – Moyers was 29 years old in 1963, when Johnson was sworn in after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination – coordinated the White House task forces that created the largest number of legislative proposals in American history. Among the programs and landmark reforms established and passed during the Johnson administration were Medicare and Medicaid, a landmark immigration law, the Freedom of Information Act, the Public Broadcasting Act and two historic civil rights laws.

Johnson’s war on poverty, in addition, introduced several path-breaking programs, such as Head Start.

Moyers served as one of Johnson’s speechwriters and was a top official in Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign. The following year, the Johnson administration began escalating U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and Johnson named a new press secretary: Bill Moyers. Again, the young man tried to decline, but the president prevailed.

As Moyers had feared, he could not serve two masters – journalists and his boss – especially as the administration’s Vietnam War policies became increasingly unpopular.

Appreciating the world around you

Moyers left the Johnson administration in 1967, turning to journalism. He became the publisher of Newsday, a Long Island, New York, newspaper, before becoming a producer and commentator at CBS News. His commentaries reached tens of millions of viewers, but the network refused to provide a regular time slot for his documentaries. He had previously worked at PBS. In 1987, he decamped there for good.

Moyers’ programs won many journalism awards, including over 30 Emmys, along with the Lifetime Emmy for news and documentary productions.

He helped millions of Americans appreciate the world around them. As he reflected in 2023, in one of the last interviews he gave, to PBS journalist Judy Woodruff at the Library of Congress: “Everything is linked, and if you can find that nerve that connects us to other things and other places and other ideas – and television should be doing it all the time – we’d be a better democracy.”

Today, with disinformation metastasizing, professional journalists losing their jobs by the thousands and some newspaper owners muzzling their editorial staff, thoughtful explanations can lose out. That means Americans can lose out.

“It takes time, commitment” to dig below the surface and discover the deeper meaning of people’s lives, Moyers noted. He sought to understand, for example, why so many folks in his own hometown of Marshall, Texas, have become much more suspicious – resentful, even – of outsiders than when he gave these folks voice in his poignant, prize-winning 1984 program Marshall, Texas; Marshall, Texas.

In this era of growing threats to democracy, what can a young person do who aspires to follow in Bill Moyers’ footsteps – whether in journalism or public life?

Woodruff asked Moyers that question, to which he responded: “You can’t quit. You can’t get out of the boat! Find a place that gives you a sense of being, gives you a sense of mission, gives you a sense of participation.”

Today, with the future of journalism – and of democracy itself – at stake, I think it would help everyone to take to heart the insights of this late, great American journalist.

Julie Leininger Pycior edited the book “Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times.” She also was hired by Moyers to direct the 18-month “LBJ Years” research project.

In addtion, she served as an unpaid, informal historical adviser for some of his public television programs.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

In 1971, the president of Mississippi State University, Dr. William L. Giles, invited President Richard Nixon to attend the dedication of U.S. Sen. John C. Stennis’ papers to the university library’s archives.

Nixon declined, but the Republican president sent a generous note in support of the veteran Democrat Stennis.

“Future students and scholars who study there will … familiarize themselves with the outstanding record of a U.S. Senator whose … judgment in complex areas of national security have been a source of strength and comfort to those who have led this Nation and to all who are concerned in preserving the freedom we cherish.”

Nixon’s prediction came true, perhaps ironically, considering the legal troubles over his own papers during the Watergate crisis. Congress passed the Presidential Records Act of 1978 after Nixon resigned.

Stennis’ gift to his alma mater caused a windfall of subsequent congressional donations to what is now the Mississippi Political Collections at Mississippi State University Libraries.

Now, 55 years later, Mississippi State University holds a body of records from a bipartisan group of officials that has positioned it to tell a major part of the state’s story in national and global politics. That story is told to over 100 patrons and dozens of college and K-12 classes each year.

The papers are fertile ground for scholarly research into Congress’ role in shaping U.S. history, with its extraordinary powers over lawmaking, the economy and one of the world’s largest militaries.

Mississippi State University, where I work as an assistant professor and director of the Mississippi Political Collections, is not alone in providing such a rich source of history. It is part of a national network of universities that hold and steward congressional papers.

But support for this stewardship is in jeopardy. With the White House’s proposed elimination of independent granting agencies such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, it is unclear what money will be available for this work in the future.

From research to public service

Mississippi State University’s building of an expansive political archive is neither unique nor a break from practices by our national peers:

• The Richard Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia – named after the U.S. senator from Georgia from 1933 to 1971 – has grown since its founding in 1974 into one of America’s premier research libraries of political history, with more than 600 manuscript collections and an extensive oral history collection.

• Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin donated his papers to Drake University to form The Harkin Institute, which memorializes Harkin’s role as chief sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act through disability policy research and education.

• Sens. Robert and Elizabeth Dole’s papers are the bedrock of the Dole Institute of Politics at Kansas University.

• In 2023, retiring Sens. Richard Shelby and Patrick Leahy donated their archives – Shelby to the University of Alabama and Leahy to the University of Vermont.

By lending their papers and relative political celebrity, members of Congress have laid the groundwork for repositories like these to promote policy research to enable local and state governments to shape legislation on issues central to their states.

More complete history

When the repositories are at universities, they also provide educational programming that encourages public service for the next generations.

At Mississippi State University, the John C. Stennis Institute for Government and Community Development sponsors an organization that allows students to learn about government, voting, organizing and potential careers on Capitol Hill with trips to Washington, D.C.

Depositing congressional papers in states and districts, to be cared for by professional archivists and librarians, extends the life of the records and expands their utility.

When elected officials give their papers to their constituents, they ensure the public can see and use the papers. This is a way of returning their history to them, while giving them the power to assemble a more complete, independent version of their political history. While members of Congress are not required by law to donate their papers, they passed a bipartisan concurrent resolution in 2008 encouraging the practice.

Users of congressional archives range from historians to college students, local investigative journalists, political memoirists and documentary filmmakers. In advance of the 2020 election, we contributed historical materials to CNN’s reporting on Joe Biden’s controversial relationship with the Southern bloc of segregationist senators in his early Senate years.

Preserving the archives

While the results contribute to the humanities, the process of archival preservation and management is as complex a science as any other.

“Congressional records” is a broad term that encompasses many formats such as letters, diaries, notes, meeting minutes, speech transcripts, guestbooks and schedules.

They also include ephemera such as campaign bumper stickers, military medals and even ceremonial pieces of the original U.S. Capitol flooring. They contain rare photographs of everything from natural disaster damage to state dinners and legacy audiovisual materials such as 8 mm film, cassette tapes and vinyl records. Members of Congress also have donated their libraries of hundreds of books.

Archival preservation is a constantly evolving science. Only in the mid-20th century was the acid-free box developed to arrest the deterioration of paper records. After the advent of film-based photographs, archivists later learned to keep them away from light and heat, and they observed that audiovisual materials such as 8mm tape decompose from acid decay quickly if not stored in proper conditions.

Alongside preservation work comes the task of inventorying the records for public use. Archivists write finding aids – itemized, searchable catalogs of the records – and create metadata, which describes items in terms of size, creation date and location.

Future congressional papers will include born-digital content such as email and social media. This means traditional archiving will give way to digital preservation and data management. Federal law mandates that digital records have alt-text and transcription, and they need specialized expertise in file storage and data security because congressional papers often contain case files with sensitive personal data.

With congressional materials often clocking in at hundreds or thousands of linear feet, emerging artificial intelligence and automation technologies will usher this field into a new era, with AI speeding metadata and cataloging work to deliver usable records for researchers faster than ever.

No more funding?

All of this work takes money; most of it takes staff time. Institutions meet these needs through federal grants – the very grants at risk from the Trump administration’s proposed elimination of the agencies that administer them.

For example, West Virginia University has been awarded over $400,000 since 2021 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the American Congress Digital Archives Portal project, a website that centralizes digitized congressional records at the university and a growing list of partners such as the University of Hawaii and the University of Oklahoma.

Past federal grants have funded other congressional papers projects, from basic supply needs such as folders to more complex repair of film and tape.

The Howard Baker Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee used National Endowment for the Humanities funds to purchase specialized supplies needed to store the papers of its namesake, the Republican senator who also served as chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan.

National Endowment for the Humanities funds helped process U.S. Rep. Pat Williams’ papers at the University of Montana, resulting in a searchable finding aid for the 87 boxes of records documenting the Montana Democrat’s 18 years in Congress.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them.”

With the current threat to federal grants – and agencies – that pay for the crucial work of stewarding these congressional papers, it appears that these records of democracy may no longer play their role in supporting that democracy.

Katherine Gregory received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a member of the Society of American Archivists.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The largest tract of public land in the United States is a wild expanse of tundra and wetlands stretching across nearly 23 million acres of northern Alaska. It’s called the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, but despite its industrial-sounding name, the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR-A, is much more than a fuel depot.

Tens of thousands of caribou feed and breed in this area, which is the size of Maine. Migratory birds flock to its lakes in summer, and fish rely on the many rivers that crisscross the region.

The area is also vital for the health of the planet. However, its future is at risk.

The Trump administration announced a plan on June 17, 2025, to open nearly 82% of this fragile landscape to oil and gas development, including some of its most ecologically sensitive areas. The government is accepting public comments on the plan through July 1.

I am an ecologist, and I have been studying sensitive ecosystems and the species that depend on them for over 20 years. Disturbing this landscape and its wildlife could lead to consequences that are difficult – if not impossible – to reverse.

What is the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska?

The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska was originally designated in 1923 by President Warren Harding as an emergency oil supply for the U.S. Navy.

In the 1970s, its management was transferred to the Department of Interior under the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act. This congressional act requires that, in addition to managing the area for energy development, the secretary of the interior must ensure the “maximum protection” of “any significant subsistence, recreational, fish and wildlife, or historical or scenic value.”

The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for overseeing the reserve and identifying and protecting areas with important ecological or cultural values – aptly named “special areas.”

The Trump administration now plans to expand the amount of land available for drilling in the NPR-A from about 11.7 million acres to more than 18.5 million acres – including parts of those “special areas” – as part of its effort to increase U.S. oil drilling and reduce regulations on the industry.

I recently worked with scientists and scholars at The Wilderness Society to write a detailed report outlining many of the ecological and cultural values found across the reserve.

A refuge for wildlife

The reserve is a sanctuary for many Arctic wildlife, including caribou populations that have experienced sharp global declines in recent years.

The reserve’s open tundra provides critical calving, foraging, migratory and winter habitat for three of the four caribou herds on Alaska’s North Slope. These herds undertake some of the longest overland migrations on Earth. Infrastructure such as roads and industrial activity can disrupt their movement, further harming the populations’ health.

The NPR-A is also globally significant for migratory birds. Situated at the northern end of five major flyways, birds come here from all corners of the Earth, including all 50 states. It hosts some of the highest densities of breeding shorebirds anywhere on the planet.

An estimated 72% of Arctic Coastal Plain shorebirds – over 4.5 million birds – nest in the reserve. This includes the yellow-billed loon, the largest loon species in the world, with most of its U.S. breeding population concentrated in the reserve.

Expanding oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska could threaten these birds by disrupting their habitat and adding noise to the landscape.

Many other species also depend on intact ecosystems there.

Polar bears build dens in the area, making it critical for cub survival. Wolverines, which follow caribou herds, also rely on large, connected expanses of undisturbed habitat for their dens and food. Moose browse along the Colville River, the largest river on the North Slope, while peregrine falcons, gyrfalcons and rough-legged hawks nest on the cliffs above.

A large stretch of the Colville River is currently protected as a special area, but the Trump administration’s proposed plan will remove those protections. The Teshekpuk Lake special area, critical habitat for caribou and migrating birds, would also lose protection.

Indigenous communities in the Arctic, particularly the Iñupiat people, also depend on these lands, waters and wildlife for subsistence hunting and fishing. Their livelihoods, food security, cultural identity and spiritual practices are deeply intertwined with the health of this ecosystem.

Oil and gas drilling’s impact

The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is vast, and drilling won’t occur across all of it. But oil and gas operations pose far-reaching risks that extend well beyond the drill sites.

Infrastructure like roads, pipelines, airstrips and gravel pads fragment and degrade the landscape. That can alter water flow and the timing of ice melt. It can also disrupt reproduction and migration routes for wildlife that rely on large, connected habitats.

Networks of winter ice roads and the way exploration equipment compacts the land can delay spring and early summer thawing patterns on the landscape. That can upset the normal pattern of meltwater, making it harder for shore birds to nest.

ConocoPhillips’ Willow drilling project, approved by the Biden administration in 2023 on the eastern side of the reserve, provides some insight into the potential impact: An initial project plan, later scaled back, included up to 575 miles (925 kilometers) of ice roads for construction, an air strip, more than 300 miles (nearly 485 kilometers) of new pipeline, a processing facility, a gravel mine and barge transportation, in addition to five drilling sites.

Many animals will try to steer clear of noise, light and human activity. Roads and industrial operations can force them to alter their behavior, which can affect their health and how well they can reproduce. Research has shown that caribou mothers with new calves avoid infrastructure and that this impact does not lessen over time of exposure.

At Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, the largest oilfield in the U.S., decades of oil development have led to pollution, including hundreds of oil spills and leaks, and habitat loss, such as flooding and shoreline erosion, extensive permafrost thaw and damage from roads, construction and gravel mining. In short, the footprint of drilling is not confined to isolated locations — it radiates outward, undermining the ecological integrity of the region. Permafrost thaw now even threatens the stability of the oil industry’s own infrastructure.

Consequences for the climate

The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the surrounding Arctic ecosystem also play an outsized role in regulating the global climate.

Vast amounts of climate-warming carbon is currently locked away in the wetlands and permafrost of the tundra, but the Arctic is warming close to three times faster than the global average.

Roads, drilling and development can increase permafrost thaw and cause coastlines to erode, releasing carbon long locked in the soil. In addition, these operations will ultimately add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, further warming the planet.

The public comment period on the White House’s plan to open more of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas drilling closes at the end of the day on July 1.

The decisions made today will shape the future of the Arctic – and one of the last wild ecosystems in the United States – for generations to come.

Mariah Meek has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and several state agencies. In addition to being a professor, she is also the director of research for The Wilderness Society, where she supervises a team of scientists doing research to understand ecological interactions in the Alaskan Arctic.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation