Alaska economy on ballot

We Alaskans have a lot at stake in the November election. The U.S. Interior Department is looking favorably at new drilling in untouched areas of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Department officials recently approved a final environmental impact statement on opening seven million acres of the reserve to new oil exploration.

About 11.6 million acres of the 23-million-acre reserve are already open to drilling. The new acreage under consideration is a very promising block west of the state lands already producing oil, the older drilling fields of Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk, Alpine and others.

If the new NPRA acreage is opened to drilling, this state could probably look forward to years of active exploration and development in an oil-rich reserve that was set aside for petroleum development. That would have a very positive impact on our economy for a long time to come.

The environmentalists oppose NPRA drilling because it is undeveloped country and has valuable wildlife resources. Their opposition is a knee-jerk reaction and has little bearing on the realities of modern drilling in sensitive areas.

Among other improvements, extended-reach drilling allows rigs to be stationed miles away from wildlife-rich areas with the well piping extending deep below the ground’s surface. Wildlife like caribou have little to no interaction with industry crews or equipment and therefore very little, if any, impact from them.

The problem is that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden sides with the greens and says he will block ANWR drilling if he is elected. President Donald Trump supports new oil development in Alaska. And polling suggests that Biden is likely to beat Trump in key states and win the presidency.

What is hard for many people to understand is that President Trump has been in many respects a very effective president and his policies have had a positive impact on the national and regional economies. He handled the pandemic badly, which had a serious impact on the country, but the bulk of his other decisions have been pretty good.

He also has positive relationships with many world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia is an adversary of the United States but both Putin and Trump seem to see value in maintaining at least a nominal friendship with each other.

That relationship has not stopped the Russians from making mischief for the United States, perhaps including meddling with the 2016 U.S. election. It seems unlikely that Russia’s efforts put Trump in office. It seems more likely that its intervention helped undermine the confidence of many Americans in this nation’s political system. That would seem a potential benefit to the Russians.

It also seems unlikely that Putin authorized bounty payments for the assassination of American troops in Afghanistan. It is possible that such payments were made, perhaps authorized by a mid-level officer in the Russian military. You can’t rule out approval from the top, but such assassinations would serve no beneficial purpose for the Russian nation. They have little to no upside but lots of potential downside impacts.

The problem with President Trump’s presidency is that he is addicted to making offhand comments in the Twitter online system that sometimes make him sound like your crazy uncle, the one you never invite to family gatherings because he embarrasses himself.

And even when there is truth in Trump’s Twitter comments, the issues are usually complex and cannot really be understood without context. But supplying context is impossible with the limited comment space of the Twitter system.

And keep in mind that President Trump couldn’t possibly be the moron the media use his tweets to portray him as. It’s oversimplification to say the least. He has a successful record in business — both commercial and show business — and in politics.

If his wife Melania would take away his iPhone, Donald Trump might look like a very successful national leader.

Tom Brennan is an Anchorage columnist and author of five books. He was a reporter/columnist for The Anchorage Times and an editor and columnist at The Voice of The Times.