Tag Archive for: Alaska

Burgum Says U.S. Natural Resources Could Equal $100 Trillion as Trump Expands Alaskan Drilling

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In a move to vastly expand energy production within the United States, the Trump administration announced on Thursday that it will reopen over 80% of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas drilling. The action comes as U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum suggested that the total value of America’s energy natural resources may approach $100 trillion.

According to an agency press release, the plan would reopen 82% of the reserve for oil and natural gas leasing as well as expand “energy development opportunities” inside the 23-million-acre area to encompass previous undeveloped land. In addition, the department will reinstate a program “that makes the entire 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge available for oil and gas leasing.”

A third action named by the department would open up the “Trans-Alaska Pipeline Corridor and Dalton Highway north of the Yukon River” in order to allow the construction of a natural gas pipeline and a mining road. These two projects “stand to increase job opportunities and encourage Alaska’s economic growth,” Burgum noted.

“It’s time for the U.S. to embrace Alaska’s abundant and largely untapped resources as a pathway to prosperity for the nation, including Alaskans,” Burgum summarized. “For far too long, the federal government has created too many barriers to capitalizing on the state’s energy potential. Interior is committed to recognizing the central role the State of Alaska plays in meeting our nation’s energy needs, while providing tremendous economic opportunity for Alaskans.”

The previous administration under former President Joe Biden had “reduced oil and gas drilling to less than half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska’s Western Arctic, down from 82% during Mr. Trump’s first term.” A year ago, the administration levied new oil and gas leasing restrictions within 13 million acres of federal Alaskan land. Then just before leaving office in January, Biden prohibited oil and gas leasing in the Northern Bering Sea and implemented new constraints on drilling in 1.3 million acres of the Alaskan North Slope.

In contrast, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term vowing to “unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources,” as well as a second EO focused on Alaskan resources, which Thursday’s Department of the Interior (DOI) action was designed to implement.

Alaskan lawmakers welcomed the move. “Today marks a new day for Alaska and American energy security,” Rep. Nick Begich (R) stated. Governor Mike Dunleavy (R) concurred, remarking that the DOI initiative “will provide more investment opportunities, more jobs, and a better future for Alaskans.”

At a Breitbart News event in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Burgum further detailed how the massive scale of America’s natural resources could help address the U.S.’s spiraling national debt.

“[W]hat’s our debt? $36.5 trillion. What are our assets?” he asked. “… I can tell you, as the head of Interior … we’ve got 500 million acres of surface. Brooke Rollins has another 200 million in the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. grasslands. So 700 million acres of surface. There [are] 700 million acres of subsurface that we have the mineral rights, critical minerals, oil and gas, metallurgical and thermal coal resources. And there’s 2.5 billion acres of offshore, [much] of which have not been even explored, all of which represent huge, huge assets for us.”

He continued, “So if you take our forests, our lands, our grasslands, our lands that are near urban areas, our mineral resources, our offshore resources, I think the number is … double, triple what our national debt is. It could be $100 trillion. … [I]f we had published America’s balance sheet and said, ‘You know, our assets are triple what our debt is,’ just [that] announcement might lower the 10-year rate on interest rates because people say, ‘Wow, these guys got it covered, and they have a plan on how they’re going to be able to pay down this debt. And they’re actually in really good shape.’”

Notably, in the weeks since Trump’s inauguration, prices at the gas pump have fallen, with the average price of gas dropping for the fourth straight week on Monday to $3.078 per gallon.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden Admin Invoked ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ To Cut Alaska Drilling, But Some Tribal Leaders Are Ready For Trump

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The Biden administration justified major crackdowns on fossil fuel and mineral development in Alaska by playing up its commitment to Native American tribes, but some community leaders who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation said they did not feel respected by the administration

Over the course of the last four years, the Biden administration moved to shut down drilling activity on tens millions of acres of land in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), retroactively canceled lease sales and effectively blocked a major mining project in the state, often touting the administration’s commitment to protecting the environment for native communities in official statements and press releases. However, these actions were a major disappointment to some of Alaska’s natives, who told the DCNF that the administration seems to have mostly ignored their desire to allow development that generates revenues for their communities and that they are ready to work with the incoming Trump administration to strike an appropriate balance.

“With climate change warming the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, we must do everything within our control to meet the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a September 2023 statement after the administration moved to shield 13 million acres from drilling activity in the NPR-A and retroactively canceled lease sales. “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history. The steps we are taking today further that commitment, based on the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations.”

However, the administration’s deference to “Indigenous Knowledge” did not mean much to some tribal leaders and officials in light of the government’s apparent disinterest in meaningfully engaging with them about key issues related to resource development.

Nagruk Harcharek is the president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, an organization that represents the interests of numerous native communities in the resource-rich North Slope region of Alaska. In his view, the Biden administration was not particularly interested in hearing what his organization had to say about the value of the economic benefits that resource development provides for his community.

“I started here in 2022. The first thing I did was try to get in there and make sure our voices were heard, because what we’re hearing from the administration is that we’re the most tribally-friendly administration in the history of the United States, right? ” Harcharek told the DCNF. “At least from our perspective, that’s not our impression.”

“We’ve always tried to stress that we are part of the environment. We utilize it for subsistence hunting, for our culture, and it’s extremely important to us. We don’t need to be protected from our own environment,” Harcharek continued. “We can make decisions and help administrations make decisions that are both good for the region and also good for the environment and good for the state, good for the nation. And that just wasn’t the case. There was a lack of engagement, meaningful engagement. Oftentimes, we heard of policy changes in the news and not from phone calls from folks, even though everybody has our number.”

Harcharek says his organization attempted to secure a meeting with Haaland on nine different occasions, but only managed to get a chance in June of this year. Other times, the Department of the Interior (DOI) sent staffers or other officials to meet with them, if their outreach to the government was even returned.

“Sometimes we didn’t even get a response from those emails, so saying that they’re the most tribally-friendly and then not speaking to most of our tribes or us in a timely manner or a meaningful manner, the just question is, who are you? Who considers you the most tribally friendly organization? Because it sure isn’t us, or we’re not getting that sentiment,” Harcharek said.

Doreen Leavitt, secretary for the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (ICAS), also ripped Haaland for lackluster engagement with her community since 2021 and expressed hope that Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — Trump’s pick to replace Haaland — will be a better leader at DOI.

“Secretary Haaland’s leadership for ICAS and our region was not just deeply frustrating, but it was saddening because as an indigenous woman myself, who wants to see other indigenous women in leadership succeed and grow, her lack of respect for our region was frustrating, to say the least, despite her recognition of tribal stewardship, our requests for consultation on critical issues were ignored or dismissed,” Leavitt told the DCNF. “I don’t know much about Secretary Burgum, other than that he comes from the Dakotas, but we will expect the incoming secretary to provide that meaningful consultation, that transparent process and respect for our tribal sovereignty and self-determination and those things we did not see under Haaland.”

Leavitt also explained that resource development has provided the money her community needed over the past 50 years to establish and maintain basic things like running water, school systems, health clinics, emergency services and more.

Without taking a political stance, Leavitt noted that she and her organization are “especially looking forward to having the government-to-government relationship rights respected” by the incoming Trump administration.

Charles Lampe, the president of Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation, said that he and his people are looking forward to Trump’s return to power after sensing that most of his community’s concerns about cracking down hard on resource development were “pretty much just cast aside” by the Biden administration.

“We’re really excited about the next four years. With the previous administration, the Trump administration, we had a great relationship. We just felt like we were actually listened to during that time,” Lampe told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

Nick Pope

Contributor.

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

CONSERVATION NATION VIDEO: The Biden Threat to Alaskan Mining

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We just released a new episode of our “wildly” popular original video series, Conservation Nation.

Please watch our Conservation Nation videos.

In this latest program, host Gabriella Hoffman (who also serves as a CFACT senior policy analyst) journeys to Alaska to look into how mining operations are carried out in this beautiful, yet remote state.

As CFACT supporters know, Alaska is chock full of critical minerals needed to run our modern society. Gold, silver, copper, zinc, graphite, cobalt, lead, and rare earth elements are all found in abundance up there. That’s why domestic mining in the region is necessary for supplying America’s technological and electricity generation needs.

Sadly, our ability to get these minerals is being hampered by the Biden Administration and radical Greens. In fact, as the latest episode points out, the Biden administration is actively blocking new Alaska mining projects in the name of fighting climate change. One of these being targeted is known as Ambler Road –an infrastructure project supported by Alaskans to reach the Ambler Mining District.

If the Green radicals succeed in taking this project down it would be bad news for all of us.

Alaskan mining is a big positive.  Viewers will learn that the Alaskan mining industry supports 10,800 total direct and indirect jobs, paying an average annual wage of $118,000—more than any other sector of the state’s economy.

And, of course, there’s also a little fun added in.  You’ll get to see Gabby attempt to pan for a little gold and land a wild Alaska salmon.

Make sure you don’t miss this program.

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EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

‘Happy New Queer’: Public Library Set To Kick Off New Year With 6 Drag Performances

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A public library in Alaska will hold a winter celebration of all things LGBTQ on January 6th featuring a drag queen story hour for children billed as “Happy New Queer,” the Alaska Watchman reported.

The event, scheduled to be held at the Soldotna Public Library, will feature six “guest drag performers,” including one openly gay man whose drag stage name is “Ivanna Kischacok,” according to the Alaska Watchman.

“Ivanna Kischacok,” otherwise known as Andrew Castelli, wears a blonde wig and has jewels falling into his dress’s fake cleavage, according to cntravler.com. He also dons ball gowns, feathers, corsets and thigh-high boots, the website reported.

The drag queen story hour is being organized by an LGBTQ activist group called Soldotna Pride and will be part of a day-long celebration including a performance at a local grocery store and a “Queer Karaoke” event at a bar, the Alaska Watchman reported.

Although the library included a disclaimer in the event announcement that reads the library “does not endorse these materials or viewpoints expressed in them,” it also encourages residents to “Bring the whole family to Soldotna Library from 11-12 pm for Drag Story Hour featuring stories read by Joe Royal Spady, local author: W.B. Clark and our incredible guest drag readers!” according to the Alaska Watchman.

Soldotna Pride has targeted youth in the past, including an event last year that ignited controversy after a video of an Anchorage drag queen apparently showing a man in a miniskirt and thong twerking in front of young children went viral, the newspaper reported. Another video shows the same drag queen gyrating in a leather miniskirt in front of minors, according to the publication.

Must Read Alaska claims the Soldotna Library event is “misogynistic-themed” and reports that “parents who want to steer clear” of the drag event can attend more traditional read-aloud story hours at a local hardware store on Saturday mornings.

AUTHOR

DANA ABIZAID

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Russian, Chinese Warships Operating In Alaskan Waters, U.S. Dispatches Destroyers In Response

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In an unusual move, four U.S. warships were dispatched to the Aleutian Islands after a group of 11 Russian and Chinese warships was discovered operating in Alaskan waters. Republican Alaska Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski confirmed the presence of the foreign vessels and highlighted the significance of the situation.

In the joint statement, Senator Sullivan expressed his concern over the Chinese and Russian naval operations, noting that such cooperation is an unprecedented occurrence.

“First, this is unprecedented, not just for Alaska, but for America to have 11 warships jointly being operated by the Chinese and Russians — who are increasingly working together — essentially doing freedom of navigation and navigation operations incursions into Alaska’s area,” Sullivan said according to Alaska News Source. 

The incident marks an improvement in the U.S. response compared to a similar event the previous summer in which the Chinese and Russian navies maneuvered off the Alaskan coast. Senator Sullivan voiced his satisfaction with the more robust reaction this time, as opposed to the “tepid” previous response from the U.S. government, emphasizing the importance of protecting vital national interests. (RELATED: Two Navy Sailors Charged with Funneling Defense Secrets to Chineses Agents)

“I was heartened to see that this latest incursion was met with four U.S. Navy destroyers, which sends a strong message to Xi Jinping and Putin that the United States will not hesitate to protect and defend our vital national interests in Alaska.”

Senator Murkowski joined in emphasizing the strategic location of Alaska near foreign adversaries China and Russia. She stressed the pivotal role Alaska plays in national defense and territorial sovereignty, calling for increased investment in the military’s capacity and capabilities within the state.

“This is a stark reminder of Alaska’s proximity to both China and Russia, as well as the essential role our state plays in our national defense and territorial sovereignty. Incursions like this are why we are working so hard to secure funding and resources to expand our military’s capacity and capabilities in Alaska, and why our colleagues must join us in supporting those investments.”

AUTHOR

ALYSSA RINELLI

Contributor.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

GOV. MIKE DUNLEAVY: Time For A Reset On Biden’s Disastrous Energy Policies

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As tensions increase between the West and Russia over Ukraine, the risks to our national security from the Biden administration’s energy policies are coming into focus.

President Biden is attempting to discourage aggression by President Vladimir Putin by positioning thousands of U.S. troops across Eastern Europe, and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken is threatening to reimpose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline that Biden waived  just a few months after taking office.

Russia’s goals for Nord Stream 2 have always been clear: increase European dependence on Russian gas, bypass and weaken Ukraine and strengthen Putin’s hand in the event of any conflict.

So here we are. Nord Stream 2 was completed this past September, European natural gas prices are soaring, Ukraine remains under threat, U.S. troops have been deployed as deterrents and Putin is demanding that NATO reduce its military footprint to post-World War II levels.

Here at home during Biden’s first year, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia as a supplier of crude oil and crude products to the U.S. with a record average of more than 700,000 barrels per day.

Nearly all that volume is going to U.S. Gulf Coast refiners that once relied on imports from Venezuela that are similar in weight and sulfur content to Russia’s.

Some Gulf refiners previously invested billions to take another kind of heavy, higher-sulfur crude from a slightly friendlier source: Canada.

That crude would have flowed to the Gulf via the Keystone XL Pipeline at a rate of 830,000 barrels per day, or enough to replace every barrel of Russian imports.

After it was resurrected under President Trump, Keystone was killed on day one by Biden. With a stroke of a pen to appease his extremist environmental base, Biden destroyed American jobs, betrayed our ally, strengthened our rivals and weakened our energy independence.

Now Americans are paying the price, and quite literally. As the situation at the Ukraine border has escalated, one grade of Russian crude exports jumped 30% in a month to $88 per barrel as of Jan. 20 according to Platts.

In sum, Russia’s treasury is benefiting from the very tensions it is creating, and Americans are funding it at the pump.

Another action Biden took on his first day in office was to suspend all lease activity in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, here in Alaska.

The first of two lease sales mandated by Congress in 2017 – with a footprint limited to only 2,000 acres within the 1.5 million-acre coastal plan – was held just two weeks earlier.

The State of Alaska acquired several tracts through our development bank and we are now suing the Biden administration over this unilateral and illegal action violating duly passed legislation.

The potential at ANWR is massive. Just 60 miles west of the coastal plain, Prudhoe Bay accounted for as much as 20% of domestic production at its peak in the 1980s.

Estimates for ANWR are limited, but the U.S. Geological Survey has consistently pegged the resource at more than 10 billion barrels. Potential peak production at ANWR is up to 1.2 million barrels per day, according to the independent Energy Information Administration. That’s more than 10% of current domestic production.

Farther west, the Pikka and Willow prospects each have production estimates in the range of 160,000 barrels per day.

As shale production flattens with drillers slowing growth in basins like the Permian, the importance of conventional fields like Pikka and Willow only grows.

ANWR, Pikka and Willow represent up to 1.52 million or more barrels of potential daily production that would refill the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, ensure energy independence, protect national security, create jobs and keep our wealth in the U.S.

Nord Stream 2, Keystone and ANWR were bad enough, but Biden wasn’t done.

Willow is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and Biden compounded his foolish policies last month by announcing his administration will revert to the outdated 2013 management plan that closed half of its 23.5 million acres to development.

The tests from Willow indicate a light, sweet grade of crude nearly identical to the West Texas Intermediate benchmark. WTI has risen rapidly in price because of supply strain and its lower cost to refine.

Yet Biden is attempting to close off half of the NPR-A where the highly prospective Nanushuk and other well-known oil-bearing formations lie.

Ironically, federal courts continue to strike down environmental analysis for resource permits such as Willow or the 2021 Gulf of Mexico lease sale because judges don’t agree with the conclusion that downstream CO2 impacts are minimal because oil will be produced elsewhere if it isn’t produced here.

In fact, this is exactly what is happening now. Lower U.S. production has only led to increases by our energy rivals who have less regard for the environment or human rights.

Of all the disasters Biden has presided over since taking office, his reversal of policies that led to our energy dominance may be the worst now that thousands of U.S. troops are being put in harm’s way because Biden gave up much of our economic leverage to appease the environmental movement.

The results are in, and it is time for a reset.

COLUMN BY

GOVERNOR MIKE DUNLEAVY

Mike Dunleavy is the 12th governor of Alaska.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Esteban Santiago [a.k.a. Aashiq Hammad] is a Puerto Rican Salafist Sunni Muslim

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EDITORS UPDATE:

WeSearchr and GotNews published more of their findings that neither the government nor media have yet discovered or released: BREAKING: #FortLauderdale Terrorist #EstebanSantiago Joined MySpace As “Aashiq Hammad”, Recorded Islamic Music – GotNews

Fort Lauderdale Airport terrorist Esteban Santiago registered on MySpace under the name “Aashiq Hammad” and recorded Islamic religious music on the site, 3 years before he ever deployed to Iraq as a U.S. soldier, destroying the lying mainstream media’s narrative that he was just a mentally disturbed veteran and that “Islam had nothing to do with it.”

[ … ]

And take a look at the three songs recorded by “Aashiq Hammad.” The first one is titled “La ilaha illAllah”, which is Arabic for “There is no God but Allah,” and the first half of the Muslim declaration of faith, the Shahadah:

[ … ]

That song was recorded in 2007, 3 years before Esteban Santiago went to Iraq as a U.S. soldier in 2010, destroying the lying mainstream media’s narrative that he was a “mentally disturbed veteran”, although even they admit Santiago went into an FBI office in 2015 and told agents he was being forced to watch ISIS videos by voices in his head (or something).

2007 was also the year that “Naota33” was posting on an explosives/weapons forum about mass-downloading Islamic propaganda videos, as GotNews exclusively revealed yesterday.

[ … ]

“Aashiq Hammad” also has Bryan Santiago — Esteban’s brother — as a connection…

The perpetrator of today’s random shooting at Fort Lauderdale, Esteban Santiago Ruiz is a Puerto Rican Salafist Sunni Muslim who was a resident of Anchorage, Alaska. CBS reported that he walked into an Anchorage, Alaska FBI office in November 2016 claiming he was forced to fight for ISIS.

He was born in New Jersey, but moved to Penuela, Puerto Rico to live with his brother and mother shortly thereafter. He moved to Alaska in 2015 for work, and had been employed as a security guard. Same job as Omar Mateen, the perpetrator of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub Massacre. He was “fighting with a lot of people” during his time in Alaska, including his girlfriend. At the time of the shooting, he was receiving mental help for his depression .

Santiago Ruiz is reportedly a Sunni Muslim with Salafist beliefs, and he is a father of one. He served in the Puerto Rican National Guard for six years. He also signed up for the National Guard as a combat engineer and served a year in Iraq. Reports indicate he had a history of mental health issues. In November 2016, he walked into the FBI office in Anchorage, claiming he was fighting for ISIS.

Esteban Santiago Ruiz’s record:

  • February 2015: Eviction for nonpayment of rent.
  • January 2016: Fourth-degree assault and damage of property, from a domestic violence incident. Santiago settled the charges.
  • On January 6, 2017 Esteban Santiago killed 5 people and injured many more in the . His name was released by Florida US Senator Bill Nelson on MSNBC. He was carrying a military ID.
  • On January 6, 2017 Esteban Santiago killed 5 people and injured many more in the Fort Lauderdale Airport shooting. His name was released by Florida U.S. Senator Bill Nelson on MSNBC . He was carrying a military ID.

Santiago took Delta Airlines Flight #1088 from Anchorage to Minneapolis – Saint Paul Thursday night. He landed Friday morning, and then took Delta Flight no. 2182 from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Fort Lauderdale. He then appeared in the Terminal 2 baggage claim area wearing a Star Wars shirt.

Witnesses say he appeared to randomly target his victims during the shooting spree which has left at at least five people dead and many more injured. He was apprehended by authorities when he stopped shooting to reload, witnesses said.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Santiago pictured wearing a black on green Palestinian Keffiyeh scarf giving a “one-finger salute,” a gesture displayed by the ISIS gunman who shot the Russian ambassador in December.

Obama’s Mountain Sized Climate Denial

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mountain of climate evidence obamaPresident Obama seems to have missed the three absolutes about the climate: 1) the climate changes; 2) the changes are cyclical; and 3) there is nothing mankind can do to change these natural cycles.

President Obama issued dire warnings of the climate changes such as famine, migration, melting ice, sea level changes, natural disasters and flooding. These all are the effects of the climate changing. The cause is the natural cycles of the climate changing.

The only thing mankind can do about climate change is prepare for the changes.

Paul Driessen, TownHall, in a column titled “Climate issues we do need to address” writes:

We need to fix the climate of fraud, corruption, and policies that kill jobs, hope and people.

[ … ]

Battered economies continue to struggle. Investment banks are pulling out of developing countries. An already exploding and imploding Middle East now confronts a nuclear arms race and human exodus.

Complying just with federal regulations already costs American businesses and families $1.9 trillion per year, the Competitive Enterprise Institute calculates. That’s more than all 2014 personal and corporate income tax receipts combined – and Obama bureaucrats issued 3,554 new rules and regulations last year.

EPA’s 2,691-page Clean Power Plan is designed to eliminate coal mining and coal-fired power plants – and minimize natural gas substitutes. The CPP requires that gas use can increase by only 22% above 2012 levels by 2022, and just 5% per year thereafter. On top of that, new natural gas-fueled generating units that replace coal-fired power plants absurdly do not count toward state CO2 reduction mandates.

The Daily Signal reports:

Katie Tubb wrote earlier this week on President Obama’s trip to Alaska:

President Obama gave a doom and gloom speech yesterday at the Global Leadership in the Arctic (GLACIER) conference in Alaska to build momentum for the U.N. climate deal in Paris this December.

So far less than one third of countries have submitted plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions by the Wall Street Journal’s count.

According to Obama, “Climate change is happening faster than we’re acting” and the world is facing a future of more fires, more melting, more warming, more suffering.

But there are at least two major problems with his focus on global warming as he’s presented it in Alaska.

  1. Ignoring Evidence On Climate Change

Obama continues to ignore science that doesn’t fit his narrative and has ignored sound evidence from people who disagree with him. Many of the environmental trends Obama has warned of do not appear to fit current realities.

In his speech he warned that,

“If [current] trend lines continue the way they are, there’s not going to be a nation on this earth that’s not going to be impacted negatively…More drought, more floods, rising sea levels, greater migration, more refugees, more scarcity, more conflict.”

global-warming-lies-heartland-institute

Click on the image for the full Heartland Institute report.

However, Judith Curry, professor at Georgia Institute for Technology and participant in the International Panel on Climate Change and National Academy of Sciences, writes that when politicians talk about an undeniable climate “consensus” they are brushing over “very substantial disagreement about climate change that arises from:

  • Insufficient observational evidence
  • Disagreement about the value of different classes of evidence (e.g. models)
  • Disagreement about the appropriate logical framework for linking and assessing the evidence
  • Assessments of areas of ambiguity and ignorance
  • Belief polarization as a result of politicization of the science

All this leaves multiple ways to interpret and reason about the available evidence.”

Read more.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of President Barack Obama, right, accompanied by Secretary of State John Kerry, left, speaking at the Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience (GLACIER) Conference at Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska, Monday, Aug. 31, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Alaskan Island Residents Looking to Become First American ‘Climate Refugees’

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The people who chose to build their town on an island are now whining that the bad old USA needs to save them as the island is supposedly sinking.

News flash! Islands submerge and often reappear again over centuries the world over as part of the dynamism that is our planet.

Back in the ’70’s I wrote a report about islands off the coast of Virginia that had whole towns on them (hotels, schools, cemeteries) that began to be uninhabitable by the early 1900’s as they were buffeted by major east coast storms (before cars were widely used! before global warming!).  The people simply recognized that it would be foolish to stay, and moved inland.   They didn’t cry out to the federal government to save them from their original choice.

Now we have these whiny Alaskan islanders who wonder if the federal government will leave them there to die!

kivalina

Alaska’s Kivalina Island.

Here is the news at HNGN:

Kivalina is located on a very thin barrier reef island between the Chukchi Sea and the Kivalina Lagoon, in the northwest of Alaska, above the Arctic Circle. And it may not be there in a decade, thanks to climate change.

In approximately 10 years, the village of Kivalina in northwestern Alaska could be submerged, giving its approximately 400 residents the ubiquitous honor of becoming the first climate change refugees of America, so much so that the U.S. government says it may be too dangerous to live there.

Waahhhh! Is the U.S. government going to leave us here to die?

“If we’re still here in 10 years time we either wait for the flood and die, or just walk away and go someplace else. The U.S. government imposed this Western lifestyle on us, gave us their burdens and now they expect us to pick everything up and move it ourselves. What kind of government does that?” Swan (a local elected official) asked while speaking to the BBC.

You pick it up and move it yourself!  And, maybe whaling is going the way of the buggy whip anyway!

One more case in the PR campaign that is building for governments (the US taxpayer mostly!) to take care of ‘helpless’ people worldwide while they bash America!

See our category—Climate refugees for more on this newest excuse for the redistribution of wealth and people.

RELATED ARTICLE: Idaho legislator calls for more transparency by resettlement agency in Twin Falls

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of two teenagers in Kivalina, Alaska, playing near a skinned polar bear.

Obama Disses Alaska

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Fifty million Americans who live in the northeast will experience what is predicted to be a historic blizzard from Monday evening through Tuesday. Cities and towns will virtually or literally close down. People will be told to stay indoors for their safety and to facilitate the crews that will labor to clear the roads of snow.

In other words, welcome to Alaska, a place that is plenty cold most of the year and which is no stranger to snow and ice.

Alaska, however, has something that the whole world considers very valuable; oil and natural gas. Lots of it. In 1980 a U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the Coastal Plain could contain up to 17 billion barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

In 1987, the U.S Department of Interior confirmed the earlier estimate, saying that “in place resources” ranged from 4.8 billion to 29.4 billion barrels of oil. Recoverable oil estimates ranged from 600 million barrels at the low end to 9.2 billion barrels at the high end.

A nation with an $18 trillion debt might be expected to want to take advantage of this source of revenue, but no, not if that debt was driven up by the idiotic policies of President Barack Obama and not if it could be reduced by the same energy industry that has tapped similar oil and natural gas reserves in the lower 48 states by drilling on private, not public lands.

Instead, on Sunday President Obama referred to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as “an incredible place—pristine, undisturbed. It supports caribou and polar bears” and other species and, guess what, tapping its vast oil and natural gas reserves would not interfere in any way with those species despite the whopping lie that “it’s very fragile.”

At Obama’s direction, the Interior Department announced it was proposing to preserve as wilderness nearly 13 million acres of land in ANWR’s 19.8 million-acre area. That would include 1.5 million acres of coastal plains that Wall Street Journal reported to be “believed to have rich oil and natural gas reserves.”

Not a whole lot of people choose ANWR as a place to vacation. It is a harsh, though often beautiful, area that only the most experienced visitor might want to spend some time. I would want to make every environmentalist who thinks any drilling would harm the area have to take up residence in its “pristine” wilderness to confirm that idiotic notion.

AA - Alaska and Caribou

Alaska caribou near oil drilling site.

They would find plenty of caribou, polar bears and other species hanging out amidst the oil and gas rigs, and along the pipe line. The Central Arctic Caribou Herd that migrates through the Prudhoe Bay oil field, just next to ANWR has increased from 5,000 animals in the 1970s to more than 50,000 today. There is no evidence than any of the animal species have experienced any decline.

The Coastal Plain lies between known major discovery areas and the Prudhoe Bay, Lisburne, Endicott, Milne Point and Kuparuk oil fields are currently in production In 1996, the North Slope oil fields produced about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day or approximately 25% of the U.S. domestic production. Alaska is permitted to export its oil because of its high levels of productivity.

So why has Obama’s Department of the Interior decided it wants to shut off energy exploration and extraction in a whopping 13-million acres of what is already designated as a wildlife refuge and along its coastlines on the Beaufort and Chukchi seas? The answer is consistent with Obama’s six years of policies to deny Americans the benefits of the nation’s vast energy reserves, whether it is the coal that has previously provided 50% of our electrical energy—now down by 10%–or access to reserves of oil and natural gas that would make our nation energy independent as well as a major exporter.

The good news is that only Congress has the authority to declare an area as wilderness. It has debated the issue for more than 30 years and in 12 votes in the House and 3 votes in the Senate it has passed legislation supporting development and opposing the wilderness designation.

And guess who is the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee? Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaskan Republican. She also heads up the appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the Interior Department!

This latest Obama ANWR gambit is going to go nowhere. It does, however, offer the Republican Congress an opportunity to demonstrate its pro-energy credentials.

“I cannot understand why this administration is willing to negotiate with Iran, but not Alaska,” said Sen. Murkowski when informed of Obama’s latest attack.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Obama Wants to Close Off Energy-Rich Stretch of Alaska to Development

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Pultizer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, wrote in the New York Times that global energy markets are at an inflection point. The role of the world’s “swing producer” has swung to the United States:

By leaving oil prices to the market, Saudi Arabia and the emirates also passed the responsibility as de facto swing producer to a country that hardly expected it — the United States. This approach is expected to continue with the accession of the new Saudi king, Salman, following the death on Friday of King Abdullah. And it means that changes in American production will now, along with that of Persian Gulf producers, also have a major influence on global oil prices.

Even though hydraulic fracturing had led this shale boom, conventional oil production is still important.

This makes the Obama administration’s request to close off a big portion of Alaska’s energy reserves to development especially disappointing:

President Barack Obama is proposing to designate the vast majority of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich coastal plain, drawing an angry response from top state elected officials who see it as a land grab by the federal government.

“They’ve decided that today was the day that they were going to declare war on Alaska. Well, we are ready to engage,” said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and chair of the Senate energy committee.

The designation would set aside an additional nearly 12.3 million acres as wilderness, including the coastal plain near Alaska’s northeast corner, giving it the highest degree of federal protection available to public lands. More than 7 million acres of the refuge currently are managed as wilderness.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the area has over 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

The wilderness designation will require Congressional approval—not likely with this Congress. However, the Washington Post reports that the Interior Department will take action to limit energy development there [H/t Noah Rothman]:

While Congress would have to approve any new wilderness designation, Interior will immediately begin managing the iconic area under the highest level of protection the federal government can offer.

President Obama, who has not been to ANWR and ironically filmed his announcement on the fuel-guzzling Air Force One said, we must ensure “that this amazing wonder is preserved for future generations.”

In contrast Jonah Goldberg, someone who has visited ANWR, had a different description of the area where oil development would take place:

The oil is on the coastal plain at the very top of ANWR on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. And that ain’t beautiful. Believe me. Winter on the coastal plain lasts for nine months. Total darkness reigns for 58 straight days. The temperatures drop to 70 degrees below zero without wind chill. This is the time of year when the oil companies would do almost all of their work; when nary a caribou nor any other creature would be dumb enough to venture out on to the frozen tundra for long. Regardless, ANWR’s summer is no picnic either. The coastal plain is covered in a thick brick of ice for much of the year. When it melts, it creates, well, puddles. Lots and lots of puddles – and mud. This provides the lebensraum that mosquitoes and other flying critters need to stretch their wings.

But back to the President. In last week’s State of the Union Address he took credit for the oil and natural gas boom, but the facts tell a different story. Under his watch, oil and natural gas development has decreased on federal lands while increased on private and state lands. In fact, his administration has put up barriers to energy development. The ANWR proposal is the latest.

The administration is expected to release a draft of its offshore lease plan. That may include allowing energy development off the Atlantic coast. Such a decision will be welcome for its economic and job growth and bipartisan support, but it will further confirm how incoherent the President’s energy policy is.

EPA Attacks World’s Largest Copper Mine

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I could write every day about some new obscene Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) effort to thwart energy the nation needs, forcing the shutdown more coal-fired plants and the mines that supply them. Goodbye thousands of jobs, goodbye electrical energy. The White House has delayed the construction of the Keystone Xl pipeline to transmit oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Do you wonder, still, why there are millions of Americans out of work or who have stopped looking because every effort to build the nation’s economy is attacked by some element of the Obama Administration.

We can now add another attack on natural resources because the EPA has announced its intention to restrict, if not prohibit, the development of Pebble Mine in Alaska. The mine could be one of the world’s largest sources of copper.

Beyond the economic benefits the mine would create, it would not only produce copper, but strategic metals like molybdenum and rhenium. Daniel McGroarty, the president of the American Resources Policy Network, noted in a July Wall Street Journal opinion that these two metals “are essential to countless American manufacturing, high-tech, and national security applications.”

Copper is one of the most important minerals used today because it is a good conductor of heat and electricity—second only to silver in electrical conductivity. It was discovered thousands of years ago in prehistoric times. Methods for refining copper from its ores were developed around 5,000 CE and, though too soft for many tools, when mixed with other metals, the resulting alloys were harder. The entire Bronze Age owes its name to the mixture of copper and tin. Brass is a mixture of copper and zinc.

McGroarty pointed out that “The irony here is that renewable-energy industries that environmentalists champion, like solar and wind, rely heavily on copper. More than three tons of it are needed for a single industrial wind turbine.” Solar panels depend on copper as well. And electric cables, usually made of copper, transmit the energy these two favored “renewable energy” sources. Together, though, they represent less than 3% of the electricity generated.

Expecting environmental groups to make any sense or even to tell the truth is a waste of time. The Pebble Mine is opposed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthworks, and Trout Unlimited. The EPA claims to have researched the environmental impact of the Alaskan mine and concluded that it poses a serious risk to the salmon fisheries and native tribes in the Bristol Bay area.

EPA research is so wretchedly flawed that the Agency is still insisting that carbon dioxide (CO2) is responsible for “global warming” even though the Earth entered a new cooling cycle around 1996. None of the children born since then have ever spent a day experiencing a warming cycle.

The EPA has been engaged in its own interpretation of the Clean Air and Clear Water Acts. The Supreme Court, which erroneously ruled that CO2 was a “pollutant” in April 2007—it is vital to all life on Earth, providing for the growth of all vegetation—has just heard oral arguments for a case that could further ruin the nation’s economy. Environmental groups and the Obama administration argued that the EPA has the authority to require that power plants and other industrial facilities must get permits to emit carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases even though they have no effect at all on the Earth’s climate.

I often wonder why most Americans are so clueless about global warming. AKA climate change, and the rape of the nation’s economy by the EPA.

So we can anticipate that, when the partnership of those seeking to open the Pebble Mine does apply for a permit, we already know that the EPA will reject it. Gina McCarthy, the current EPA administrator, has made that clear. You can be sure that the EPA’s “research” has predetermined that outcome.

That’s not science. That’s just more environmental lies.

Those lies are a large component of why the nation is enduring an economic stalemate that is beginning to look like the next Great Depression. Those lies will try to stop the Pebble Mine and shut down more coal-fired plants. Those lies are the reason why so many potential new industrial and business enterprises are not being created.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

RELATED STORY: Wyoming welder faces $75,000 a day in EPA fines for building pond on his property | Fox News

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is courtesy of Rob Lavinsky / iRocks.com. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.