Opinion: Let's Not Foot the Big Bill

In today’s blog, we are pleased to share a recent op-ed published in the Anchorage Daily News. Read the original op-ed here.

Three Trump cabinet officials concluded their recent visit to Alaska with a June 8 opinion piece in the Daily News pitching an energy renaissance in our state that only the “Big Beautiful Bill” can bring about. But we Alaskans should question what these Outsiders are selling.  

For starters, what the Trump-endorsed bill fundamentally does is provide more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, paid for mainly by raiding Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps. It would increase the federal deficit by an estimated $3 trillion.  

Trump’s salesmen didn’t mention these inconvenient features of the bill. What they did say is clearly recognizable to any Alaskan as familiar nonsense. The premise is that the previous administration waged an “assault” on our state, “devastating many Alaska communities,” and the bill will fix this. There are no facts or examples given; this is just tiresome “federal overreach” hyperbole, once again.

Next, they claim that Alaska will “benefit enormously” from the bill’s provisions that will magically “protect” 14,000 jobs in the state over the next four years. Really? How? Is Congress guaranteeing specific jobs now? If the bill is not enacted, are the 14,000 to be summarily dismissed, DOGE-style?  

We’re told the bill will bring us “billions” of mana from heaven because of oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Cook Inlet. But past federal sales in these landscapes have generated a pittance. We are also supposed to be excited that at least four million acres of federal land will be leased for new coal development. Will the bill unleash a lucrative coal renaissance here? Very unlikely. The benefits for us are fake; it’s the expensive tax cuts for the wealthy that are real.

Cynically, these Cabinet officials assure us without evidence that “Alaska maintains some of the world’s strictest environmental standards,” yet they know the bill would waive all environmental laws and prohibit judicial review of any oil and gas activity in the Arctic Refuge. Strict standards? Try no standards.

Lastly, we’re told the bill will save us from the “radical environmentalism that has locked away Alaska’s resources.”  

Nah. We’ve developed our resources and will continue to do so. We’ve also proudly conserved some of our world-renowned public lands and wildlife on a landscape scale for our own benefit and enjoyment, and for that of future generations.  Our wildlife and wildlands drive a sustainable hunting, fishing, recreation and tourism economic motor that’s in line with our Alaska values. That’s not radical; it’s wise.  

What’s radical is when a Secretary of the Interior, charged with stewarding public lands, tries to bribe us with a mirage of cash we’d get from exploiting them; what’s radical is Cabinet officials viewing public land and wildlife conservation as antithetical to our national interests.  

Upon examination, the bill is really a big betrayal that enriches the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us and sells out our natural heritage while breaking our budget. We Alaskans should firmly oppose it and urge our elected representatives to do the same.  

Pat Lavin has lived and worked on conservation issues in Alaska for 32 years. He currently serves as senior policy advisor at Defenders of Wildlife, a national non-profit conservation organization.