Unleash America’s Energy: Offshore Drilling and ANWR Are the Keys to Affordable Power

Drill Baby, Drill!!!

There’s an old saying you hear in every dockyard from San Pedro to Kodiak: “You can’t run a country on wishes and windmills.” Yet for years, Washington has tried exactly that betting our entire energy future on intermittent renewables while kneecapping the very industries that keep the lights on, the trucks moving, and the American economy humming. Thankfully, we’re beginning to see a course correction. The new Interior Department plan to dramatically expand offshore oil and gas leasing alongside the reopening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for drilling is precisely the kind of commonsense, pro-American energy push we’ve needed for over a decade.

And make no mistake: this isn’t about politics. It’s about economic survival.

For years, families in California, Oregon, and Washington have paid some of the highest gas and electricity prices in the nation, courtesy of restrictive drilling bans, “keep-it-in-the-ground” activism, and tangled regulatory schemes dreamed up by bureaucrats who think energy magically appears when you flip a switch. The result? Expensive commutes, sky-high utility bills, and businesses fleeing to states that can still afford to run an air conditioner in the summer.

Now, after years of policy drift, the federal government is finally taking steps that actually match the scale of America’s energy needs.

According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the new Interior plan proposes up to 34 offshore lease sales, covering 1.27 billion acres, one of the most ambitious expansions in recent memory.[1] After years of restrictive policies, this is a significant shift toward energy abundance. More exploration means more production. More production means more supply. And more supply means you guessed it lower prices for American families.

It’s basic economics, something Washington elites too often pretend not to understand.

But the energy renaissance doesn’t stop offshore. The reopening of ANWR, including the full 1.56-million-acre coastal plain, is another critical piece of the puzzle.[2] That stretch of Arctic tundra, the famous 1002 Area, is one of the most promising untapped oil reserves left on the planet. Congress opened it back in 2017, but politics stalled meaningful development. Now, with lease sales reinstated and future auctions on the horizon, America has a serious chance to reduce its dependence on unstable global markets and energy cartels.

Critics love to paint ANWR as some untouched Garden of Eden, but the reality is far more practical. The targeted drilling zone is a small fraction of the refuge and modern drilling technology has a minimal footprint compared to decades past. Meanwhile, the benefits are enormous: high-paying jobs, new royalties for Alaska, and a stronger domestic supply that keeps OPEC+ from gaming our families’ wallets.

Let’s be honest: high energy prices aren’t an accident. They’re a policy choice. When you restrict drilling, kill pipelines, and make permitting a regulatory obstacle course, you get shortages, high prices, and dependence on countries that don’t like us very much. When you open American energy offshore, onshore, and Arctic, you get the opposite: reliable abundance.

This is why offshore drilling in the Pacific matters so much to folks here on the West Coast. Alaska’s North Slope and offshore fields have historically supplied refineries from Seattle to Los Angeles. But as production has fallen and restrictions have tightened, we’ve imported more from places like Ecuador and Saudi Arabia. That makes no sense for a nation blessed with more oil and gas than almost any country on Earth.

Imagine a future where California’s refineries are supplied by abundant domestic production not tankers from regimes with spotty human-rights records. Imagine a winter where heating bills don’t spike because a foreign cartel cut output by 2 million barrels a day. Imagine a world where commuters don’t cringe every time they pass a gas station.

Offshore drilling and ANWR aren’t silver bullets, but together they could reshape America’s energy landscape, lowering costs, strengthening national security, and ensuring that our prosperity isn’t held hostage by geopolitical roulette.

The truth is simple: America runs on energy. And the cheapest, most reliable, most abundant energy is the kind we produce ourselves.

For decades, we’ve been told that the future belongs to countries that embrace green austerity. I disagree. The future belongs to nations strong enough to power themselves   to fuel their industries, innovate, build, and grow without begging for resources overseas. Offshore drilling in the Pacific and renewed development in ANWR bring us closer to that future.

America doesn’t have an energy shortage   it has a political will shortage. The new Interior plan and the reopening of ANWR finally show signs of courage. If we follow through, the payoff will be enormous.

Energy abundance isn’t just a policy. It’s a promise of prosperity, security, and American strength.

And it starts with drilling where the resources actually are.

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Endnotes

1. Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). “New Interior Department Plan to Increase Offshore Lease Sales Will Help Lower Prices, Increase Supply.” CEI Press Release, 2025.
2. Earthjustice. “Trump Administration Opens the Entire Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Oil and Gas Leasing.” 2025.
3. Congressional Research Service. “Oil and Gas Leasing in ANWR’s Coastal Plain.” 2024–2025.
4. Alaska Public Media. “Trump Administration Pushes Ahead with Alaska Wildlife Refuge Oil and Gas Drilling.” October 2025.
5. U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). “ANWR Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program.”

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Rusty Sullivan is a contributor to Direct Line News. He can be contacted at Rusty.Sullivan@mcgopclub.com

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