Mining & Drilling
2025 August - Copper Mining
2025-08-19 Trump pushed back on a court decision to temporarily block the Resolution Copper project, blaming the delay on the “radical left”. The Resolution Copper project aims to develop copper mining upon sacred and protected Native American holy sites.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/20/copper-trump-slams-anti-american-pushback-over-arizona-project.html
2025-08-26 Trump cancelled a nearly complete offshore wind project (Revolution Wind in RI and CT) and announced his plans to “drill-baby-drill” stating, “We don’t call it coal, we call it clean coal, and even very very clean coal”.
2025 October
2025-10-24 Trump removed protections from Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas drilling.
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/nx-s1-5584883/trump-alaska-wildlife-refuge-oil-gas-drilling
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/nx-s1-5584883/trump-alaska-wildlife-refuge-oil-gas-drilling
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/23/oil-gas-drilling-alaska-national-wildlife-refuge
2026 February
2026-02-27 North Dakota judge ordered Greenpeace to pay $345 million in damages related to Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
2026 March
2026-03-02 South Bow revealed plans to revive parts of the Keystone pipeline project.
2026-03-14 The administration approved BP’s $5 billion deep-water drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico despite concerns about marine ecosystems and BP’s Deepwater Horizon history. This will threaten deep sea ecosystems and marine life.
https://earthjustice.org/feature/kaskida-bp-oil-drilling
https://www.sej.org/headlines/trump-administration-approves-ultra-deepwater-oil-drilling-plan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
2026 April
2026-04-13 Chevron set to expand oil extraction operations in Venezuela.
2026-04-28 The UAE departed from OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/uae-says-it-quits-opec-opec-statement-2026-04-28/
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/29/uae-opec-exit-oil-iran-war.html
2026-04-29 The Senate voted to open pristine Minnesota boundary waters in Canada for mining and drilling.
https://www.wpr.org/news/why-mining-minnesotas-boundary-waters-matters-wisconsin
https://spokesman-recorder.com/2026/04/29/boundary-waters-copper-mining-ban-lifted/
[https://www.fox9.com/news/bwca-mining-ban-ends-trump-april-2026](https://www.fox9.com/news/bwca-mining-ban-ends-trump-april-2026)
https://www.savetheboundarywaters.org/action-center
https://earthjustice.org/feature/boundary-waters-canoe-area-wilderness-photos
2026 June
2026-06-04 Trump used a Cold-War era national defense law to grant $700M to coal plants.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/04/trump-coal-defense-production-act
2026-06-22 The Interior Department introduced new guidelines to slash oil and gas fees paid by energy companies, eliminate requirements to detail plans to eliminate methane emissions, and reduce environmental protections.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5935238-public-lands-drilling-interior/
SUB WALL https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/22/climate/trump-drilling-public-lands.html
2026 July
2026-07-08 ExxonMobil’s top attorney Robert Levy retired and joined Trump’s newly renamed Energy and Natural Resources Division, previously the Environment and Natural Resources Division. Co-president of Public Citizen’s Robert Weissman wrote, “Big Oil’s capture of the U.S. government is now complete. The Justice Department that should be fighting to protect clean air and water and avert catastrophic climate change will now work on behalf of polluters to advance the poisoning of people and the planet”.