Trump Administration Speeds Up Environmental Review for 800-Mile Alaska Oil Pipeline

The Trump administration is expediting an environmental review of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System that would reauthorize the project for another 30 years, including the pipeline, pump stations, access roads, bridges and a fuel gas line that lie within the right-of-way.

The Bureau of Land Management is also shortening the public comment period for review of the project to 15 days. The federal government usually accepts public comment from 30 to 60 days, or even longer, depending on the complexity of the rules.

BLM, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, was not scheduled to renew the right-of-way until 2034, the third renewal since 1974.

“We are acting now to secure the pipeline’s future as we work to unlock the energy resources of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the Coastal Plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” said Kevin Pendergast, BLM Alaska state director, in a press release. Pendergast said the pipeline is “only growing in its importance to Alaska’s economy and global energy markets.”

The BLM’s Alaska office did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Climate News.

The pipeline has transported more than 19 million barrels of oil from Alaska’s North Slope since it began operations in 1977. Last year, it moved an average of 463,000 barrels per day, according to BLM. 

Critics say the two events indicate the Trump administration “is seeking an early, quick renewal to preclude long overdue consideration of mounting economic and ecological concerns” about the pipeline, according to PEER, a watchdog group that works with current and former federal, state, local and tribal employees.

The expedited project would exacerbate climate change while benefitting two of the pipeline owners, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, each of whom contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, federal records show. Harvest Alaska also co-owns the pipeline.

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence of a warming planet—and climate disasters accelerating in real time—from the burning of fossil fuels, on Jan. 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order, “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.” 

It contained several provisions, including a directive to ramp up fossil fuel development and production on federal- and state-owned lands in Alaska. The order also called for expediting the permitting of fossil fuel projects there. 

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline carries crude oil from the North Slope of Alaska to the Valdez Marine Terminal. Congress approved its construction Nov. 16, 1973, less than a month after the announcement of the Arab embargo on the shipment of petroleum to the U.S., according to researcher Joseph Rudolph.

The pipeline opened in 1977 despite significant environmental and social concerns: the potential damage to wildlife habitats, particularly caribou, the melting of permafrost and the disruption of tribal cultural practices.

Even then, some scientists predicted the world’s continued reliance on fossil fuels, such as oil, would permanently alter the planet.

The same year the pipeline opened, President Jimmy Carter received a memo from his chief science adviser, Frank Press, titled “Release of Fossil CO2 and the Possibility of a Catastrophic Climate Change.”

Press warned the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was escalating. He estimated concentrations could increase by 1.5 times that of pre-industrial levels by 2037. It turns out Press was overly optimistic: The planet hit that benchmark—420 parts per million—14 years early.

“The urgency of the problem derives from our inability to shift rapidly to non-fossil fuel sources once the climatic effects become evident not long after the year 2000,” Press wrote. “The situation could grow out of control before alternate energy sources and other remedial actions become effective.”

Alaska is a bellwether of future climate disruptions. The state is warming at rates two to three times the global average, according to federal data.

Since 1971, average annual temperatures have increased from 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit in central Southeast Alaska to 6 degrees on the North Slope, the geographic origin of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system. 

Rising temperatures contribute to melting permafrost, diminishing sea and river ice. Glaciers are melting twice as fast now as they did from 1960 to 2004, according to a federal climate hub.

“The oil burned from Alaska’s pipeline has come with a huge cost to our state’s climate. It’s driving declines in salmon and caribou, and contributing to mega-storms that are making communities unlivable,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a prepared statement. 

“Alaska is facing massive climate disruption, but Trump wants to give the oil companies carte blanche to continue business as usual for the next three decades. This process should be thorough and public, not rammed through at the behest of billionaire oil company owners.”