3 Trump officials meet with resource industry leaders in Anchorage to launch Alaska energy trip

Alaska’s governor, its two U.S. senators and three Trump administration officials gathered Sunday in an Anchorage hotel to extol an executive order meant to boost the state’s resource development industry.

The order at the heart of the meeting was signed by President Donald Trump in January, during the first day of his second term. It laid out several provisions aimed at smoothing the path toward more drilling for oil and gas; more logging; more mining; and more hunting on federal lands.

In attendance in a cramped ballroom at downtown Anchorage’s Hotel Captain Cook were Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, U.S. Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Alongside them were several dozen invited resource development industry leaders, state lawmakers and Dunleavy administration officials who were in a jovial mood as they spoke about the potential of Alaska’s resource industry under Trump’s leadership.

Sullivan, whose office organized the event, called the visit by Trump administration officials “a seminal event.” He referred to Burgum as “Alaska’s landlord.”

The roundtable was the first of numerous events that the Trump officials planned to attend during a multiday visit to Alaska. Burgum, Wright and Zeldin were expected to travel to the North Slope early in the week to meet with residents and oil field workers. They were also scheduled to participate in a sustainable energy conference organized by Dunleavy in Anchorage.

Sunday’s two-hour roundtable was not open to the press. But after its conclusion, journalists were ushered in to listen to closing remarks by participants.

“There’s a lot of alignment amongst Alaskans behind this executive order,” said Rebecca Logan, chief executive of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance.

Sullivan began his remarks by pulling out a pamphlet his office had designed when former President Joe Biden was in office, which listed several executive decisions taken by the Biden administration that Sullivan has said were meant to “lock up” Alaska. Sullivan proceeded to rip up the pamphlet and throw the pieces in the air.

“We got a new sheriff in town,” he said.

Sullivan said the meeting was meant to facilitate the fast implementation of Trump’s January executive order, which as of yet has not led to the realization of new resource development in the state.

“We have the need for speed,” said Sullivan.

Murkowski, a Republican who has spoken frequently against actions and priorities articulated by the Trump administration, thanked the Trump officials for their “unique” visit to the state but left the event before the roundtable concluded.

“To have them here in our state, to be listening to industry leaders, to be listening to Alaskans — this is a newsworthy takeaway,” said Murkowski. ”It is instructive, I think, for those of us here in Alaska to realize the partnership that we have with this administration. The Trump administration has looked at Alaska’s potential as an asset, instead of a liability.”

The comments offered by meeting attendees were replete with grand statements but sparse on details.

Both Sullivan and Murkowski said they emerged from the meeting with a renewed interest in permitting reform that would make it easier for private industry to launch new resource development projects in the state.

“It shouldn’t take 20 years to permit an old mine in Alaska. That hurts people, when you delay things for so long,” said Sullivan. “The radical far left groups that do it, they don’t care about our state, they don’t care about the communities, like in Western Alaska, with their poverty that they have. They just want to shut down everything.”

“We just need the federal government to help us, and this is the team that wants to do it,” said Sullivan.

Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said “there is nowhere more important for the three of us to be right now than right here,” referring to himself, Wright and Burgum.

“I am extraordinarily confident in knowing that once this very productive visit to Alaska is done and we head back to Washington, D.C., that this team is able to work with your governor, with your congressional delegation, to be able to work with all of you to make sure this wasn’t just some ideal on a Sunday morning of an amazing future ahead for Alaska. It’s not just a dream,” said Zeldin.

Wright, the energy secretary, said that Trump got elected on the promise to deliver “not handouts to Alaskans” — rather, “freedom to develop the underground materials and turn them into resources.”

Interior Secretary Burgum said, “Alaska has an opportunity to allow us to do one of the mandates of the Trump administration, which is to sell energy to our friends and allies, so they don’t have to buy it from our adversaries.”

“The potential of this state is unbelievable,” said Burgum. “It can really become a powerhouse of a state.”

“But we’ve got to get the federal government out of your way. That’s what the three of us are here to do” said Burgum.

LNG discussion

Chief among the resource development priorities emphasized by Trump during the first months of his second term has been a liquefied natural gas pipeline project that has been long sought by Alaska politicians. For decades, the project has remained far from realization, in large part because it is expected to cost a staggering $44 billion.

Sullivan acknowledged Sunday that “we get Alaskans who roll their eyes” at the LNG project, but he said there has been “really historic progress happening” both with interest from the private sector and with Trump’s stated commitment to the project.

“A lot of tailwinds there, exciting times. We’re not there yet, but it’s exciting,” said Sullivan.

The high-level meeting offered no new details on developments with the project.

Dunleavy recently went on a multi-stop trip to Asian countries to promote Alaska’s LNG. Burgum said Sunday that “there are huge implications for national security for the United States to be able to export energy to our Pacific allies — South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan.”

“We just have to be able to do math in this country and understand that the impacts are so low,” said Burgum.

Sullivan said that the Trump administration would “work with us on federal loan guarantees for the Alaska LNG project,” but the officials in attendance did not offer new details on how the project would be financed.

“The Alaska pipeline, if we get off-take agreements, if we sell energy to our Pacific allies, there will be people lined up to finance it,” said Burgum. “It won’t take foreign capital to build the pipeline. There may be foreign interest in wanting to be part of it, because it’s going to be a great project, but what we really need is customers.”

Renewable energy

Even as the Trump administration has championed Alaska’s energy potential, it has taken steps that could thwart several ongoing renewable energy projects throughout the state.

Alaska utilities in recent years have been turning increasingly to renewables as costs for fossil-fuel electricity have increased. Those projects were enabled in part through tax credits approved in Biden-era legislation. Now, the Trump administration is freezing grants for some energy projects, and with the passage of the latest tax and spending bill, Republicans in Congress are looking to undo those tax credits — with support from Alaska’s U.S. Rep. Nick Begich.

That could mean that several projects with the potential of lowering Alaskans’ energy bills will be halted.

Those impacts were not on the agenda for the public portion of Sunday’s meeting.

Murkowski is one of four Senate Republicans who have spoken in favor of preserving the tax credits that have paved the way for renewable energy projects in Alaska.

Asked Sunday about the Trump administration’s impacts on Alaska’s renewable energy projects, Sullivan was noncommittal.

“We’re an all-of-the-above energy state,” Sullivan said Sunday. “We’re looking at the different elements of what’s in the House budget reconciliation bill … but we’re still studying the bill and trying to figure out what’s the best way to balance what’s in the budget reconciliation with the overall goals of that bill.”