JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
President Donald Trump issued a flurry of executive orders yesterday focused on energy production and natural resource development. He aims to roll back policies from the Biden administration that limited drilling or mining on public lands. One order in particular caught our eye because it covers a ton of issues that are all in one single state, and that's Alaska. So we turn now to Liz Ruskin. She is Washington correspondent for Alaska Public Media. Hi there.
LIZ RUSKIN, BYLINE: Hello.
SUMMERS: Hi, Liz. So just to start if you can, I mean, this order covers a lot of ground - walk us through what's in it?
RUSKIN: Yeah, it covers nearly every controversial Alaska land-use issue this century. It includes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, offshore drilling. It calls for a road through a portion of a wildlife refuge, a controversial road, to help the small community of King Cove. And it calls for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska and a lot more than that. But I should add that just because there's an executive order doesn't mean it's going to happen. Regulations take a long time to be written, and environmental advocates are going to fight a lot of these in court. And then some things require the oil and gas industry to be interested. It calls for more lease sales in the Arctic refuge, for instance, but the government has already held two lease sales there, and none of the major oil companies have bid.
SUMMERS: Interesting. So why do you think there is such a focus on Alaska?
RUSKIN: Well, the short answer is because President Biden was very focused on Alaska. He issued some 70 executive orders making Arctic drilling harder, all kinds of things. And each one infuriated Alaska's Republican leaders, and they complained that the Biden administration was locking up Alaska. Governor Dunleavy specifically asked for this order, a single order, on his - on Trump's first day. I talked to Alaska congressman Nick Begich today, and he, of course, is delighted.
NICK BEGICH: In Alaska, what I've been hearing over the last 24 hours, people are thrilled, people are excited, people are optimistic, and they're excited about the opportunity to participate in this broad, exciting national story.
RUSKIN: And there's a bigger picture here, too. Alaska has always been the battleground where America fights over conservation versus development. The modern history of that goes back to the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline in the 1970s.
SUMMERS: Liz, I'm just curious, what have you been hearing in terms of reaction from Alaskans?
RUSKIN: Well, Alaska is a red state. Trump won it by a substantial margin. A lot of people are cheering this, including major Alaska native groups. But not all Alaskans feel this way, of course. I spoke to some who are fighting a road in a proposed - to a proposed mining district. And now that controversy is reopened, and they're feeling like they lost years of work.
SUMMERS: Quickly, in the short time we have left, the president also signed a separate order to rename the highest peak in North America, now called Denali, which is an Alaska native name. Trump wants to change it back to Mount McKinley. How do Alaskans feel about that reversal?
RUSKIN: Well, we actually have a new poll that says Alaskans oppose the name change to McKinley by a 2-to-1 margin.
SUMMERS: Liz Ruskin from Alaska Public Media, thank you so much.
RUSKIN: Thank you.
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