US President Donald Trump has opened large areas of Alaska, including the Gulf of Alaska just north of the BC border to oil leases. The additional leases also  allow more drilling the Arctic. If drilling and production  does go ahead,  which isn’t certain, that might also mean there could be even more oil tanker traffic off the British Columbia coast,  adding a new challenge to Alberta’s demand that the Mark Carney federal government modify or even abolish the west coast tanker ban.

The decision by the Trump administration, according to Alaska media reports, also includes one “lease sale in a newly designated ‘High Arctic’ area that lies beyond the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and where U.S. territorial rights are not yet clear.” The Associated Press reported the area includes “more than 320 kilometres offshore in the Arctic Ocean.”

That is an area claimed by the United States during the Biden Administration that “does overlap a bit with the extended continental shelf claimed by Canada.” At the time the Biden State Department said the boundary dispute will have to be settled sometime in the future, but now the Trump administration seems prepared to grant an oil lease in the area.

On November 20, as the governments of Canada and Alberta were still negotiating in secret a Memorandum of Understanding, the calls for a pathway to ending or modifying the west coast tanker ban, the Trump administration released a plan for offshore oil and gas leasing that would open almost all Alaska marine waters to development.

The US mainland media mostly concentrated on similar oil leases off California and Florida, downplaying the Alaska leases. The only Canadia media (according to a Google search) that reported the issue was CBC News which posted an Associated Press article which had only one sentence buried in the story that mentioned Alaska.

The Alaska developments were off the Canadian politic and media radar at the time that Mark Carney was making his deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

The Alaska Beacon reported that most of the leases are in parts of the Alaska Arctic where there is already has been oil production on the North Slope for decades. Two are in the Beaufort Sea and two in Chuckhi Sea. The oil from the North Slope travels on the Trans Atlantic Pipeline System  and is loaded at the Port of Valdez,  where the oil tankers then travel offshore west of Haida Gwaii to Tacoma, Port Angeles and Anacortes in Washington State, San Francisco and Long Beach.

The Exxon Valdez disaster on March 24, 1989, took place in Prince William Sound after the tanker had departed from the Port of Valdez.

The Trump decision also allows five leases covering one million acres in Cook Inlet, just to the west of Prince William Sound. There are already some oil production in Cook Inlet. Cook Inlet is an earthquake prone subduction zone, the site of the 9.2 magnitude 1964 Anchorage megathrust earthquake..The inlet is also a rich salmon habitat and home to unique species of Beluga  and Rice’s whales.

A map released by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management shows lease planning for 21 new potential leases all the way to the border with Canada, just north of Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii.

The oil industry publication Upstream noted that the Trump decision goes further than the 34 leases permitted by Congress under the Big Beautiful Bill Act  by adding an additional 36.

Like the Canada Alberta MOU, which, at this point, doesn’t mean that the tanker ban will be eventually lifted, offering leases doesn’t mean energy companies will bid and nor does it mean that the energy companies will eventually begin production.

That would depend on market conditions and US politics, as the decision could be reversed again by a Democratic president and Congress.
As one analyst told the New York Times (paywalled) the price of oil that determines whether companies invest in new drilling.

“Market conditions still rule,” said Joseph Majkut, director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The overall market is creating pressure for companies because of lower prices in oil, and we’re starting to see investment slow down,” he said

There is currently no proponent for an oil pipeline from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia.

The first Trump administration opened leases stopped by President Barak Obama, only to have Trump’s decision paused by President Joe Biden.

Trump issued an Executive Order on January 20 when he took office Unleashing Alaska’s Resource Potential 

US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in that the decision will ““a major step to boosting United States energy independent” adding “The Biden administration slammed the brakes on offshore oil and gas leasing and crippled the long-term pipeline of America’s offshore production. 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.”

That is very similar to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s statement in April, “We can’t build Canada into an energy superpower if we can’t actually get the shovels into the ground,” Carney said at an ironworkers’ union office in Calgary. “To put it plainly, we need to get going.”

The decision is also controversial in Alaska state politics, with some supporting and some opposing the decision, including many indigenous Alaskans.

Alaska politicians are cautious, sounding little different from their Canadian counterparts. Senator Lisa Murkowski who has always maintained a close relationship with northwestern BC politicians of all parties, along with her colleague Dan Sullivan released a statement

“Offshore energy is an important part of our nation’s energy supply and security, and we must have a well-reasoned plan in place to support its responsible development. Much like the Trump administration’s approach in 2018, it’s important to remember that this is the start of a process to strike the right balance, not its end point…” In Alaska, we need to focus on Cook Inlet—where we mandated sales through this summer’s budget reconciliation bill—to provide energy for Southcentral and complement our onshore opportunities in the NPR-A and the Coastal Plain. In the months ahead, Interior will need to consult with and fully consider the perspectives of Alaskans to understand why development in some of our waters—especially the offshore Arctic and the Bering Strait—should not be in the final version of this five-year plan.”

“I spoke with Secretary of the Interior Burgum earlier today about the Department of the Interior’s Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program announcement,” said Senator Sullivan. “He committed to me that DOI will continue to carefully listen to Alaskans throughout this process, particularly Alaska Native communities who live near the proposed leasing areas, including our whaling captains who bring generations of experience and deep knowledge of the Arctic Ocean.
“It’s important for Alaskans to know that this draft proposal is not a final decision or a directive that any particular offshore lease sale will occur. Before any potential proposal is finalized, there will be multiple opportunities for public comment, environmental review, and additional analysis. As my office reviews the proposal, I will work to ensure that we are weighing in and amplifying Alaskan voices and views.

The US environmental groups Natural Resources Defence Council said in part

The next five-year plan proposes to open huge areas of our ocean to dangerous and dirty offshore drilling, not to mention the climate implications of continued fossil fuel extraction. The stakes couldn’t be higher: Offshore drilling threatens the health of our ocean, our climate, and our coastal communities. Catastrophic oil spills—like the 2010 disaster on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, and the more recent 2021 and 2024 Huntington Beach spills in California—cause ecological, economic, and public health damages that can last for decades.
Dramatic in the short term, oil spills spell long-term devastation. But these disasters are only one way in which offshore drilling wreaks havoc. The oil and gas industry’s routine business practices imperil marine wildlife with deafening seismic airgun blasts, destroy habitats, emit toxic by-products and high levels of greenhouse gases, and lead to tens of thousands of smaller, less visible spills in U.S. waters annually.

So far there has been no reaction from the indigenous people of the Alaska panhandle. In the north, according to the Alaska Beacon, the indigenous people of the Aleutians and Arctic are worried and called on the US to drop all plans for selling leasing in areas from the Aleutian Islands to the Bering Strait.

We, the Central Yup’ik, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, and Inupiaq people, have been here since time immemorial. Because we spend so much time out on the Bering Sea fishing and hunting, the sea is just as important to us as the land. The Tribes that still rely on these waters to hunt and fish remain unified in protecting these waters. Our people have been clear: the planning areas in our region should not be made available for oil and gas leasing,” said the letter, which was from the Association of Village Council Presidents, Nome-based Kawerak Inc. and the Bering Sea Elders Group.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said Friday that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that manages US offshore energy activity, told the Alaska Beacon in an email it  will do further evaluation before settling on a final leasing plan.

The First Proposal is the first of three required steps before the Secretary can finalize the 11th Program. BOEM is including these areas now to meet legal requirements, conduct further analysis, gather public and industry input, and ensure the Secretary can fully evaluate all options before deciding what areas to include in the final program,” Alyse Sharpe, a senior public affairs specialist.

Editor’s note: There is still a major problem with media coverage of these issues by the Canadian media, which generally still insists in covering northwestern BC issues from Calgary. The US media also generally ignored and downplayed the Alaska angle to this story. I only found out about it Sunday morning when I read Heather Cox Richardson’s November 29 Letters from an American.