Biden locked up Alaska's oil for four years and called it environmental protection.
Now Interior Secretary Doug Burgum just told Congress the reserve Biden tried to bury is about to write checks to the US Treasury.
That's not a promise – it's a number, a deadline, and a direct rebuke to every Democrat who told you Alaska wasn't worth fighting for.
Biden Padlocked the Reserve and Called It Environmental Protection
For four straight years, Biden refused to hold a single lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska – a 23-million-acre stretch of the North Slope that Congress set aside a century ago specifically to fuel America's energy security.
In April 2024, his Interior Department finalized a rule barring new oil and gas development on 11 million acres inside the reserve while layering new restrictions on the remaining acreage.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said what every Alaskan was thinking: "When you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore – this is the energy insecurity that we're talking about."
Sen. Dan Sullivan called it one of the most blatant examples of federal overreach in Alaska in decades – locking up land Congress explicitly set aside for energy production while ignoring the law and the people who lived closest to it.
Alaska sued to recover the damages.
The state's own estimates put the cost – in canceled leases, lost royalties, and strangled development – in the hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars.
The Sale Biden Said Would Never Happen
On March 18, 2026, Interior held the first NPR-A lease sale since 2019.
Eleven companies submitted 430 bids.
Total receipts: $163,696,722 – the highest revenue ever recorded for a single NPR-A lease sale, shattering the previous record of $104 million set in 1999.
BLM Alaska State Director Kevin Pendergast called it "the strongest sale we have ever had in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska by nearly every measure."
ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Repsol, and Shell competed for 187 tracts covering 1.33 million acres – and ExxonMobil and Shell's return to Alaska surprised even industry insiders.
ExxonMobil hadn't bid on new leases in years.
Shell hadn't operated in Alaska since a failed offshore campaign more than a decade ago.
Both came back.
Steve Wackowski, president of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, said industry stepped forward with meaningful commitments because Trump restored access and certainty to the reserve Biden had deliberately destroyed.
The sale was mandated under Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which requires at least five NPR-A lease sales over the next decade.
Sen. Sullivan called that schedule the guarantee that matters: "We got 10 years of mandatory lease sales required in the law for NPR-A. That is 110% confidence and certainty."
Burgum's Promise to Congress: Taxpayers Get Paid Back by 2027
This week, Burgum testified before a Senate appropriations subcommittee and delivered the number that reframes the entire debate.
By 2027, the National Petroleum Reserve will shift from an expense on the federal ledger to a net contributor – generating more revenue for the U.S. Treasury than it costs to manage.
Think about what that means.
The land Biden told Americans was too fragile to touch is now projected to pay Americans back within two years of leasing resuming.
This Is What Energy Dominance Actually Looks Like
Biden told America that locking up Alaska was necessary to protect polar bears and caribou.
What he didn't tell you is that the Alaska Native communities who actually live there – the ones who depend on oil revenues for schools, emergency services, and infrastructure – opposed him every step of the way.
Nagruk Harcharek, president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, whose membership includes North Slope Borough leaders and Arctic Slope Regional Corp., said at the time that Biden's restrictions did not reflect their communities' wishes.
Those same communities are now watching companies like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the land their families have lived on for generations.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy called the record-setting lease sale "a major win" for the state and the country.
He was right.
Trump didn't just reopen Alaska's oil fields.
He turned a liability the left spent four years manufacturing into a revenue stream headed straight for the American taxpayer – and he locked it into law so the next Democrat who gets to the White House can't kill it with a pen.
Sources:
- Bureau of Land Management, "Interior Generates over $163 Million from National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Oil and Gas Lease Sale," U.S. Department of the Interior, March 18, 2026.
- Yereth Rosen, "Alaska Petroleum Reserve Lease Sale Raises Record $163.7M," Anchorage Daily News, March 19, 2026.
- Augusta McDonnell, "Willow Project Was 'First Step' in Attracting Industry Interest Shown in Record Arctic Oil Lease Sale," Alaska's News Source, March 21, 2026.
- Sen. Lisa Murkowski, "Senate Nullifies Biden-era Lock-Up of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve," Press Release, October 30, 2025.
- Alaska Watchman, "Alaska Delegation Praises Repeal of Biden Rule That Blocked NPR-A Development," November 17, 2025.
- Institute for Energy Research, "Alaska Sues Biden Administration Over Lost Opportunities for Oil Production in the NPR-A and ANWR," July 8, 2024.
- Yereth Rosen, "A Giant Lease Sale Could Launch a New Era of Oil on Alaska's North Slope," Alaska Beacon, March 30, 2026.
