Areas included in draft offshore drilling plan: Alaska’s Beaufort Sea (2), Chukchi Sea (2), Gulf of Alaska, Shumagin, Kodiak, Hope Basin, Norton Basin, Navarin Basin, St. George Basin, High Arctic, Aleutian Basin, Aleutian Arc, Bowers Basin, and St. Matthew-Hall Planning Areas (1 each)
New offshore drilling plan opens almost all federal water off Alaska
Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media, November 20, 2025
The Trump administration proposes to open nearly all of the oceans off Alaska to potential oil and gas drilling.
The draft offshore leasing plan includes the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and other areas important to the fishing industry. It’s part of a national proposal that includes the entire coast of California, where drilling is fiercely unpopular.
“By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in an emailed announcement.
The top Democrat on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Jared Huffman of California, pledged to fight, in court and in Congress. Huffman said it doesn’t make sense for Alaska either.
“I just think it’s incredibly reckless,” he said. “I mean, we know what the seafood economy means to the state of Alaska.”
The plan goes beyond what Alaska advocates of offshore development have favored in the past. In 2018, Alaska’s all-Republican delegation to Congress praised an offshore plan that included lease sales in Cook Inlet and the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. But they asked the first Trump administration to remove the Bering Sea and the Gulf from consideration.
The plan released Thursday is a “first analysis,” with two more planned before final approval. If it survives, the first lease sale would be in the Beaufort.
It’s not clear oil companies would be interested. Shell spent 10 years and $7 billion trying to drill there before giving up on offshore Arctic exploration.
“Our economic competitiveness, energy security, and environmental goals all depend on reforming how we build, not how we delay.”
Taking the Politics Out of Permitting Reform
Nick Loris, C3 Solutions, November 20, 2025
Efficient permitting isn’t a partisan luxury – it’s a national imperative. As our nation confronts rising energy demand, aging infrastructure, and growing pressure on our natural lands, the question is not whether we should reform our permitting processes; it’s how quickly and boldly we will. Removing politics from the process isn’t about stifling debate; it’s about ensuring that decisions are made on facts, timelines, and transparency rather than ideological gridlock, outdated regulations, and litigious activists. With the passage of the SPEED Act out of the House Natural Resources Committee, Congress is one step closer to enacting meaningful reform.
The policy imperative is clear: streamline, clarify, and accelerate the permitting process – without sacrificing environmental protection. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) has devolved into a procedural maze of redundant reviews, legal delays, and speculative analysis. The result? Years of delay, billions of dollars in cost overruns, and costly impacts on energy consumers, taxpayers, and the economy.
The stakes are high. The U.S. produced more energy in 2024 than ever before yet rising electricity demand is straining our grid and higher prices are squeezing household budgets. At the same time, our forests and public lands need active management to reduce wildfire risk — but meaningful conservation efforts are often delayed by slow permitting. In short: our economic competitiveness, energy security, and environmental goals all depend on reforming how we build, not how we delay.
The SPEED Act offers concrete reforms: narrowing the scope of analysis under NEPA to factors that bear a “reasonably close causal relationship” to the project; broadening the use of categorical exclusions where appropriate; and avoiding redundant federal reviews when states or tribes have already conducted comparable analysis. On the judicial side, the bill reforms standing and statute-of-limitations provisions so that genuine community voices are heard — without endless procedural games blocking investment and development.