Alaska Republican leaders celebrate Trump victory

Alaska Republican leaders said they were pleased with Tuesday’s election results and hope they will create more opportunities for oil drilling and other developments on Alaska’s federal lands.

Not just Donald Trump Win back the White Housebut Republicans regained control of the US Senate. This means both Alaska senators are back in the majority and their ability to advance their agendas in Congress has increased.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan thinks the wins are good for Alaska.

“These are bipartisan issues we want to get done here — King Cove road, ANWR, NPR-A,” he said at an election night watch party. “I mean things that are pretty bipartisan in Alaska, the Biden administration has successfully tried to shut down.”

Alaska voters decidedly favored the Trump ticket. With almost all regions counted55 percent of Alaska voters chose Trump, while 40 percent chose Kamala Harris.

Alaska Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy also celebrated Trump’s victory. One live broadcast On Wednesday morning, Dunleavy said the former president was good for the state in his first term and the governor expects similar priorities in Trump’s second term.

“He sees Alaska’s oil resources, our gas resources, our mining resources, our timber resources, our position in the world, our military as the solution to the problems of the country, not just for Alaska,” he said.

The Biden administration has until January 20 to implement Alaska policies. Just Wednesday, he issued a decision on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that infuriated development advocates. Ministry of the Interior decided to open only 400,000 acres The minimum amount required by Congress for oil leasing. The first Trump administration proposed opening an area three times larger.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has made major agenda wins under the Trump administration, including legislation requiring oil leasing in the Arctic Refuge. But his relationship with Trump is rocky. She voted to convict him after his second impeachment. earlier this year described it as flawed “to the core” and stated that he did not have the character to be president. Trump called Murkowski “disloyal” and flew to Alaska to help support a more conservative rival in 2022.

Murkowski said they could still have a productive period.

“I’ll only do that if it means I have to approach things differently,” he said at a news conference Wednesday. “But at the end of the day, regardless of what the president thinks of me personally or politically, my job, my role is to make sure Alaska wins, and that’s what I intend to do.”

Murkowski said that with the Republican majority in the Senate, she could be the chair of the Indian Affairs Committee and also chair of the subcommittee that holds the purse strings of the Interior Department.