Promises Made, Promises Kept: Trump Keeps Another One in ANWR

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey is lying in the X post above, of course: The oil industry most assuredly did not pour “hundreds of millions” of dollars into the Trump campaign. The industry wasn’t even among Trump’s biggest contributing industries, so timid are its current corporate leaders. But Trump is following through with the promises he made regarding oil and gas during that campaign despite the paucity of the industry’s support.

Much to the chagrin of Markey and the legions of his fellow sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the U.S. Interior Department (DOI) announced plans this week to reopen part of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) to oil and gas leasing in the coming months. In a notice published on October 23, DOI says the move fulfills directions from congress in both the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts bill and this year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4. It also complies with Trump’s Day 1 executive order requiring DOI to rescind the 2021 order by Joe Biden halting any lease sales targeting this same slice of ANWR’s vast reserve.