Burgum Stops in Anchorage, Touts Alaska Energy Role Before Tokyo Forum

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum touched down at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport on March 12 long enough to deliver a pointed message: Alaska should be supplying energy to America's Pacific allies, and the federal government is moving to make that happen.

Burgum and his team were en route to the U.S.-sponsored Indo-Pacific Energy Security Ministerial and Business Forum in Tokyo, where he said federal officials planned to pursue gas-buying agreements and investment deals tied to the proposed Alaska LNG project. Gov. Mike Dunleavy stood alongside the secretary at the airport stopover.

The Alaska LNG project calls for an 800-mile pipeline carrying natural gas from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska, where it would be liquefied and shipped by tanker to Asian countries. The project has long been estimated to cost $44 billion, though skeptics say the actual price will climb far higher. No final construction decision has been announced, but Burgum said the project is moving forward.

"Where'd that energy best come from? It would best come from Alaska," Burgum told reporters. "There's no straits, there's no threats. There's no terrorist countries that are blocking it."

He framed the push as urgent, citing the ongoing war in the Middle East and its ripple effects on global energy markets. "I'd say it's needed more than ever right now in the world because of what we're seeing," he said. "Energy dominance is about energy abundance. Alaska can play a huge role in that, and that's going to be great for Alaskans, great for America, and great for the world."

Burgum said the Trump administration is actively courting South Korea and Japan as both investors and off-takers for the project, with both countries in the middle of large planned commitments to the U.S. economy. South Korea has announced a $350 billion planned investment in the United States; Japan has pledged $550 billion. "We're in discussions with both of those about how they might play a role as off-takers and investors in this," Burgum said. Federal financing channels under discussion include the Export-Import Bank and a Department of Energy program Burgum referred to as the "energy dominance loan fund."

Dunleavy said he plans to introduce state legislation to support Alaska LNG that will involve Payment in Lieu of Taxes, known as PILT. An earlier version of the project had also floated PILT payments as a substitute for property taxes, which are critical revenue sources for municipalities and the state.

The federal government is also weighing a stake in the controversial 211-mile Ambler Road, which would connect Northwest Alaska to a mineral-rich interior region. That consideration adds another dimension to the administration's broader resource development agenda in the state.

Separately, the Interior Department's Federal Subsistence Management System, which gives rural residents priority access to hunting and fishing on federal lands, is currently under review. The scope and timeline of that review have not been announced.

Burgum's Tokyo itinerary was set to include direct outreach to companies that could commit to purchasing large volumes of gas from the Alaska LNG project, a step Burgum described as central to moving the megaproject from proposal to reality. Whether those conversations produce signed agreements remains to be seen, but the stopover in Anchorage made clear that the North Slope's energy future was very much on the agenda before the plane left Alaska airspace.