Alaska public lands: land transfers, Roadless Rule rollback, and wild horse disposal remain at various stages of execution

The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 blueprint for the Department of the Interior treats Alaska's public lands as a resource extraction colony rather than a shared national commons. Two of its three core Alaska proposals are now in motion or partially executed. The revocation of Public Land Orders 5150 and 5180 — which would open roughly 2.1 million acres to state selection — is underway as of February 2025, and by 2026 the administration had transferred 1.4 million acres to Alaska. This is not a bureaucratic land shuffle; it is a fire sale of lands that sequester carbon, provide critical habitat for caribou and salmon, and sustain Indigenous communities. The administration is also moving to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule for the Tongass National Forest, with a proposed rule expected in March 2026. That rule protects 9.37 million acres of temperate rainforest that store immense amounts of carbon and support fishing, tourism, and subsistence economies. Rolling it back would open the Tongass to logging and infrastructure that fragments ecosystems and increases wildfire risk. Both actions accelerate emissions from forest loss and industrial development, contradicting every climate commitment the U.S. has made.

On a separate track, the wild horse and burro provision — which would allow BLM to kill or sell for slaughter animals now protected by a decades-old congressional ban — has not advanced. The House Interior Appropriations subcommittee rejected it in July 2025, and the FY26 budget proposal would only partially advance the goal by removing slaughter protections from the BLM transfer program. The public should watch the FY26 appropriations process closely and continue to defend the existing ban. Meanwhile, the Arctic Refuge leasing program from 2020 remains largely unimplemented due to canceled leases and litigation, and the Willow oil project expansion to five drilling pads has not been attempted. These remain future threats, not current realities — but the trajectory is clear: Project 2025 is being executed in phases, with the easiest administrative actions taken first. Environmental justice communities, Indigenous tribes, and conservation groups must maintain pressure on Congress to block the Roadless Rule rollback and to hold the line on wild horse protections, while also preparing to fight any attempt to revive Arctic Refuge leasing or expand Willow. The alternative is clear: keep public lands in public hands, enforce the Roadless Rule and ANILCA protections, and invest in the restoration economy — renewable energy, sustainable tourism, and ecosystem stewardship — that provides jobs without burning the planet.