Swath of Alaska Opened to Mineral Leasing in Trump’s Last Hours

Outgoing Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Friday opened the doors to possible mining and fossil fuels development across a region of Alaska about three times the land area of Connecticut.

Friday’s order, which takes effect on the Trump administration’s last full day in office, would allow mineral leasing across 9.7 million acres of Bureau of Land Management territory in western Alaska, including the Seward Peninsula and an area southwest of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR-A.

In the order, Bernhardt said the reasons the land had been prohibited from leasing no longer exist. Neither the Interior Department nor the ...