Stop gambling taxpayer dollars on Arctic drilling delusions
Last month, seven oil and gas leases covering more than 365,000 acres in the Arctic Refuge were reinstated to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a corporation that is state-owned and publicly funded but operates with incredibly limited legislative and public oversight — not an oil and gas company. Despite the political fanfare, this isn't a win for the industry or taxpayers; it's a clear reminder that private energy companies have higher priorities than the Arctic Refuge.
The Arctic Refuge lease sale in 2021 drew just three bidders, with the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority accounting for 84 percent of leased acreage, all sold at the minimum price. The other two bidders eventually relinquished their leases. The most recent lease sale in January 2025 attracted zero bids, delivering precisely zero dollars to taxpayers. Banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, along with leading insurers, refuse to support Arctic drilling. When the world's biggest financial players won't touch these projects, it's clear that Arctic drilling is a losing investment.
But the risk isn't just financial — it's ecological and economic as well. The Arctic Refuge's coastal plain is not just a remote stretch of wilderness; it's a vital ecosystem owned by all Americans that sustains Alaskan livelihoods through hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation. Hunters and anglers rely on the Arctic Refuge's habitat, home to migrating caribou, nesting waterfowl, and fish species like Arctic char and Dolly Varden trout.
This isn't empty land — it's an economic anchor for the region. Outdoor recreation provides stable jobs and reliable revenue for Alaskan communities. The most recent data highlights that outdoor recreation accounts for nearly 5 percent of Alaska's economy — it added more than $3 billion to the state economy in 2023 and supports 6 percent of Alaska's jobs.
By pushing speculative oil leases, lawmakers are jeopardizing the reliable revenue that outdoor recreation generates for local communities and the country. Sacrificing one sector's proven economic gains for uncertain drilling prospects is fiscally irresponsible and shortsighted.
Some in Congress, however, insist on using projected revenues from drilling in the Arctic Refuge to offset extending major provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is set to expire soon. This effort perpetuates the fiction that new leasing in this critical fish and wildlife habitat can meaningfully reduce deficits.
But the numbers don't lie. According to our detailed analysis of lease sales in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve and North Slope region, federal revenues from future Arctic Refuge lease sales would likely amount to just $3 million to $30 million, even if all available acres are offered for sale. That's a pittance compared to the trillion-dollar deficit impact of extending the 2017 tax cuts. Taxpayers have seen this movie before — and it doesn't end well.
We raised this alarm in 2017, warning that the promised $1.8 billion in Arctic Refuge auction revenues was wildly exaggerated. And we were right. The first lease sale brought in just $16.5 million — nearly all from the state-backed company at minimum bids. The second sale, in January 2025, generated nothing at all. Doubling down on these leases as a source of meaningful revenue isn't optimism — it's budgetary wishful thinking.
Lawmakers must face reality: Revenue from lease sales in the Arctic Refuge aren't even a rounding error in budget reconciliation. Continuing to gamble taxpayer resources on speculative leases ignores economic facts and undermines proven, sustainable industries — like outdoor recreation — that create high-paying jobs for Alaskans. Leasing in the Arctic Refuge will not generate sizable revenue for taxpayers but will risk irreplaceable wildlife habitats that support an abundance of hunting and angling opportunities.
Domestic oil and gas development and responsible stewardship of public lands don't have to be mutually exclusive. We can tap America's vast natural resources and generate meaningful returns for taxpayers while at the same time protecting public lands, wildlife habitats, and valuable outdoor recreation opportunities for generations to come. But banking on Arctic Refuge lease sale revenues to help pay for more tax cuts is as misguided now as it was in 2017.
Back then, just eight years ago, the national debt stood at roughly $20 trillion. Today, it exceeds $36 trillion. Congress needs real budget solutions, not more fiscal delusions that threaten our public lands legacy.
. Patrick Berry is president and CEO of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
27 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Musk vows to start a third party. Funding's no issue, but there are others.
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Even some of Musk's own supporters have expressed doubts about the direction he now plans to take, preferring that he stay focused on the business ideas that fueled his net worth of roughly $400 billion. Advertisement But as his improbable bid to buy Twitter and front-and-center role in the 2024 election showed, Musk has defied expectations before. If nothing else, he could make life difficult for lawmakers he says have reneged on their promise to cut spending. Advertisement 'Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!' Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he bought when it was still named Twitter, this week. 'And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.' Musk, who didn't respond to a request for comment, has already identified his next target: the reelection campaign of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who opposes Trump's signature legislative package. Urged to support Massie by former GOP congressman Justin Amash, a Trump foe who declared himself an independent in a 2019 op-ed decrying the two-party system as an 'existential threat,' Musk replied, 'I will.' Representative Thomas Massie speaks to the media following a vote to stop a government shutdown at the Capitol on March 11. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post Massie did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday about Musk starting a third party, but he posted a Fox News story about the chief executive's plans to donate to his campaign. 'An interesting thing just happened,' Massie wrote on X. With Trump already working to defeat Massie next year, the race in northern Kentucky appears to be the first to pit the two billionaires against each other. On Capitol Hill, where the Senate passed the massive tax and spending bill Tuesday afternoon, there were few signs of alarm about Musk. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), when asked by reporters Monday evening about Musk's threats to punish Republicans who vote for Trump's plan, said the billionaire is not top of mind at the Capitol. 'Doesn't matter, doesn't matter at all, no. It's not even been a conversation of ours,' he said. 'I mean, if we ran every time someone said something about our election, we'd live in fear the whole time.' Advertisement Senator Markwayne Mullin bounces a rubber ball through the Ohio Clock Corridor on Monday, on Capitol Hill. Tom Brenner/For The Washington Post Unless that someone is Trump. Two Republican lawmakers who have been at odds with Trump both said in rapid succession this week that they would not seek reelection. Rep. Don Bacon (Nebraska), who has taken issue with Trump's tariffs and policy toward Russia, announced his retirement Monday. The day before, Sen. Thom Tillis (North Carolina) said he would not seek a third term after Trump vowed to punish him for opposing his legislative package. That leaves Massie as one of the only points of Republican resistance in Congress to Trump's agenda. Musk's decision to cast himself as a potential third-party leader raises questions about his political vision. It has just been in the last few years that he has evolved from Democratic-leaning Trump critic to staunchly Republican Trump acolyte. Trump allies mocked his latest incarnation. 'I think it's the ketamine talking in the middle of the night,' said Trump pollster Jim McLaughlin, referring to media reports about Musk's drug use that he has denied. 'Trump is the Republican Party right now. He is the conservative movement. There's not a hankering for a third party with Elon Musk.' A Gallup poll last year found that 58 percent of U.S. adults agree that a third party is needed in the U.S. because the Republican and Democratic parties 'do such a poor job' of representing the American people. Support for a third party has averaged 56 percent since 2003, according to Gallup. History shows that third-party candidates are rarely victorious. Ross Perot, one of the most successful independent candidates for president in American history, received about 19 percent of the popular vote and no electoral college votes. Advertisement 'Third parties are traditionally spoilers or wasted votes,' said Lee Drutman, senior fellow at the New America think tank. 'But if Musk's goal is to cause chaos and make a point and disrupt, it gets a lot easier.' Ralph Nader's presidential bid in 2000 was a classic example of a disruptive campaign, Drutman said, contributing to an outcome so close that Republican George W. Bush prevailed over Democrat Al Gore only after the Supreme Court weighed in. Ralph Nader acknowledges his mother at an event at the National Press Club before watching the election night voting unfold. Lucian Perkins/TWP The trend in the U.S. toward increased political polarization also makes it more difficult for third-party candidates, Drutman said. When Perot ran in 1992, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush were both running as centrists, allowing Perot to argue that there wasn't much daylight between the two major parties. By contrast, the differences between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the 2024 election were much more stark. America's political diversity also complicates matters, Drutman said. 'If there clearly was a party in the center that was more popular than the Democrats or the Republicans, then someone would have organized it by now,' he said. 'It's not like we've just been waiting for Elon Musk to show up.' Musk entered politics in earnest during the 2024 presidential election. Beyond his massive financial investment, Musk frequently appeared alongside Trump at rallies and cheered him on over X. But since Trump's win, Musk's experience in politics has been turbulent. Earlier this year, the billionaire and groups affiliated with him donated more than $20 million in a bid to help conservatives take control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In the final stretch of the campaign, Musk drew derision for wearing a foam cheesehead at a town hall and for directing his America PAC to pay registered voters for signing petitions. A couple of voters won $1 million prizes. Advertisement But even with the race flooded with Musk's cash, the conservative judicial candidate — whom Trump also endorsed — lost by a wide margin in April. Musk's personal presence in the race did his candidate harm, said Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin's Elections Research Center. Conservative voters appreciated Musk's money, but that wasn't enough to overcome negative perceptions of an ultra-wealthy outsider injecting himself into the state's politics, Burden said, adding that Musk's presence galvanized greater liberal turnout. 'A new party is going to benefit most from Musk if they can draw on his resources but keep him in the background,' Burden said. 'And if he can portray himself as an innovator and a tech entrepreneur — and somebody who is really contributing to the American economy and funding this new operation without being its front person — I think that's probably going to lead to the most success.' Musk floated his idea of a new party nearly one month ago on June 5, after days of criticizing the massive GOP tax bill as a measure that would burden the country with 'crushingly unsustainable debt.' 'Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?' Musk wrote, along with a poll. Since then, Musk has regularly posted about starting a new party and going after lawmakers who vote for the spending bill. 'If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day,' Musk wrote Monday. Advertisement A person who has served as a sounding board for Musk, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, questioned Musk's ultimate strategy in undermining a party he had hoisted to victory beyond wanting 'to be in the driver's seat.' 'I agree our government is broken, but it's a tougher problem to fix than landing a rocket,' the person said. Paul Kane contributed to this report.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How AI Agents can transform banking operations: 3 principles for ‘endgame', not ‘game over'
AI Agents – a sophisticated type of software capable of planning, reasoning, and executing tasks independently – are fast becoming a serious consideration for banks looking to streamline operations and boost resilience. With organisations like the World Economic Forum (WEF) touting the transformational potential of Agentic AI, banking leaders must focus not only on the technology itself but getting it used effectively. Will AI Agents on balance displace banking jobs, or will they become integral to a new hybrid human-machine operating model? In other words, is it 'game over' for bankers or is this simply the 'endgame'? In the banking sector, where the cost of error is high and regulatory obligations are extensive, finding the answer hinges on more than just technological capability. Instead, it requires a clear understanding of how AI fits into existing systems, how it learns, and most crucially, how it understands the organisation it's deployed in. For AI Agents to be meaningfully integrated into core business operations, they need more than a generalised grasp of the world (what we might call a 'Public World Model'). Agents also require a 'Private World Model', a real-time, contextual understanding of the specific business environment they serve. This Private World Model is what enables AI to move beyond basic task automation and operate with the discretion, safety, and strategic alignment necessary for use in high-stakes settings like risk, compliance, or customer operations. Building it takes more than data. It takes a structured approach that brings business context into every layer of AI deployment. Banks seeking to move from early experimentation to strategic, at-scale adoption should follow these three key principles: For AI Agents to deliver value, they must be embedded into the operating model, not bolted on as isolated tools. That means defining their purpose, boundaries, and how they interact with human teams from the outset. In practice, this requires cross-functional alignment. That means bringing together risk, compliance, technology, and business operations to ensure governance is embedded and responsibilities are clearly allocated. It's about answering the operational questions before the technical ones. For example: What will the agent do? What decisions can it make? How will performance be measured? How will human oversight work? In highly regulated banking environments, this level of discipline is essential. Poorly integrated AI risks duplication, degradation of service quality, or worse, regulatory breaches and reputational harm. Successful AI programmes treat these issues as first-order design considerations, not afterthoughts. The temptation to adopt AI Agents quickly across the enterprise is understandable, but rarely effective. A more sustainable approach begins with well-defined use cases that offer a high return with manageable risk. One clear example is JPMorgan Chase's COiN (Contract Intelligence) platform, which uses AI to review commercial agreements. It reportedly cut error rates by 80% and freed up 360,000 hours of legal review time annually. This isn't a theoretical impact. It's measurable operational efficiency, delivered through structured implementation and ongoing oversight. Banks should look for similarly contained, repeatable tasks that are essential but burdensome. These create ideal environments for AI Agents to demonstrate value while allowing teams to build institutional knowledge and governance muscle before expanding into more complex areas. AI deployment is not a one-off exercise. As business needs change and regulatory frameworks evolve, AI Agents must adapt in parallel. That means embedding feedback loops and performance monitoring from day one. Unlike static software, AI systems learn from data, and that data changes. Ensuring AI Agents remain aligned with business strategy requires structured retraining, robust monitoring, and clearly defined escalation routes when things go wrong. Change management for the human workforce is equally important. As tasks evolve, new skills and new ways of working are needed. Supporting employees through this transition is critical to building trust in AI, ensuring adoption, and maintaining operational integrity. Retail banks must act now to embrace AI Agents before they become the industry standard, rather than a competitive edge. The prize is substantial for those who are first adopters: greater efficiency, faster decision-making, more consistent compliance, and more responsive customer operations. But the route to get there is not through a single piece of technology. It's through a deliberate strategy grounded in business context and operational clarity. By focusing on integration, strategic implementation, and continuous learning, banks can shift from seeing AI as a bolt-on and start treating it as a vital core capability. Rather than triggering 'game over' for bankers, AI's real potential lies in shaping a more agile, resilient and scalable workforce where humans and machines complement one another. That's an endgame worth striving for. David Bholat is Professional and Financial Services Director at Faculty "How AI Agents can transform banking operations: 3 principles for 'endgame', not 'game over'" was originally created and published by Retail Banker International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
USA Today
32 minutes ago
- USA Today
FBI relocating to Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, D.C
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is relocating its headquarters to the The Ronald Reagan Building, closing the storied headquarters building it has occupied since 1975, the law enforcement agency said July 1. The agency is currently housed in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington D.C. 'This is a historic moment for the FBI,' FBI Director Kash Patel said in a joint announcement with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)."Through our strong partnerships with members of Congress and GSA we are ushering FBI Headquarters into a new era and providing our agents of justice a safer place to work. Moving to the Ronald Reagan Building is the most cost effective and resource efficient way to carry out our mission." Back in May, Patel announced agency was moving its more than 1,500 personnel out of the downtown Washington D.C. building. The planned relocation from comes more than than two decades of looking for a new office and after federal officials cited an aging building, needed space to meet the agency's mission and workforce requirements. FBI's existing headquarters in the Hoover building "has accumulated years of deferred maintenance, suffering from an aging water system to concrete falling off the structure,' said GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian. 'I am proud of the GSA's commitment to working with Director Patel and his FBI team to find a building that best supports their mission and their people.' The plan headquarters the FBI inside a building once home to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the principal agency extending aid to countries recovering from disaster, which has since been dismantled by the Trump administration. The announcement did not provide a move date and USA TODAY has reached out to the FBI for comment. How many people work at Patel previously spoke about closing Hoover Building and transforming it into some type of a 'deep state' museum. In May, Patel said the FBI had about 11,000 of its 38,000 or so staff in the National Capital Region, a 50-mile radius around Washington, D.C. 'It's like a third of the workforce. A third of the crime doesn't happen here. So we're taking 1,500 of those folks and moving them out,' Patel said this spring. Where is the FBI headquarters? The FBI's headquarters is currently housed in the Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The Reagan Building complex, at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, is currently home to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other tenants. "The GSA will continue to support and work with CBP on space that allows them to fulfill their mission while the transition of the FBI to the Reagan Building commences," the FBI and GSA wrote in the announcement. 'A world-class location' GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner Michael Peters said the move provides "a world-class location for the FBI's public servants, but it also saves Americans billions of dollars on new construction and avoids more than $300 million in deferred maintenance costs at the J. Edgar Hoover facility.' Contributing: USA TODAY's Josh Meyer Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@ and follow her on X @nataliealund.
