Trump order on off-road vehicle rules could reshape Alaska federal-land access fights

President Donald Trump rescinded two executive orders that shaped how federal agencies manage off-road vehicle use on public lands. The move could have outsized implications in Alaska because the federal government owns about 60 percent of the state.

The May 29 order rescinds Executive Order 11644, issued in 1972, and Executive Order 11989, issued in 1977. Those orders directed agencies to regulate off-road vehicle use under criteria meant to minimize damage to soils, watersheds, vegetation, wildlife habitat, cultural resources and conflicts with other land users.

Trump's order says those standards are vague, hard for agencies to apply and not required by statute. It directs Interior, Agriculture and other agencies to begin rulemakings to rescind or revise regulations that carried out the earlier orders.

The order does not open a particular Alaska road, trail, preserve, refuge, oil field or mining corridor. Agencies still have to act through rulemaking, permitting and land-use decisions. The order says agencies must act consistent with existing law, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

Federal ownership in Alaska includes national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, military reservations, Bureau of Land Management lands and the National Petroleum Reserve. That makes any change to federal access policy relevant to rural travel, snowmachine and ATV use, hunting and trapping access, utility work, tourism, mining roads, oil and gas development and conservation fights.

The White House framed the order as an access and multiple-use measure. It said the earlier orders imposed subjective criteria, delayed permits, created barriers to energy and timber production and utility maintenance, and limited recreation in remote areas.

The criteria Trump removed were originally designed to reduce harm to wildlife, habitat, scenery, cultural sites and other users. In Alaska, the conflicts those criteria address can involve subsistence harvest, caribou habitat, tundra damage, wilderness values and rural communities that depend on both access and healthy fish and wildlife populations.

The order fits into a broader Trump administration push to reverse Biden-era Alaska land restrictions. The Department of the Interior announced last week that it is reopening 1.56 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain to oil and gas leasing, restoring leases held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, moving toward a winter lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, reissuing right-of-way permits for the Ambler Road, advancing the King Cove-Cold Bay road land exchange and highlighting Alaska Native Vietnam-era veterans land allotments.