The Bureau of Land Management has given the public an extra week to comment on a proposed 30-year right-of-way renewal for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. The scoping period, which began Aug. 26, 2026, now closes Sept. 17, 2026.
The scoping period is a step in the environmental review process that examines the proposed renewal of the pipeline's right-of-way. A scoping period is when an agency collects public input on what an environmental review should cover.
Alyeska Pipeline Service Company filed the 30-year renewal application with the BLM earlier this summer. Alyeska operates the 800-mile pipeline, which carries oil from Alaska's North Slope to in-state refineries and the Valdez Marine Terminal, on behalf of three owner companies:
- Harvest Alaska LLC
- ConocoPhillips Transportation Alaska Inc.
- ExxonMobil Pipeline Company LLC
a pipeline built in the 1970s still moving oil
The Trans Alaska Pipeline System was authorized in 1974 and built between 1974 and 1977. It has since carried more than 19 billion barrels of oil from the North Slope to market. In 2025, the pipeline moved an average of 463,000 barrels a day.
The BLM links the scoping extension to the Department of the Interior's wider push under Executive Order 14153, Secretary's Order 3422, titled "Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential," and Executive Order 14154, "Unleashing American Energy." The agency says those actions have streamlined permitting in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, leading to lease sales and, it says, increased production ahead.
Comments on the renewal go through the BLM's National NEPA Register under case number DOI-BLM-AK-9410-2026-0009-EA, with the deadline now Sept. 17, 2026.
The BLM manages about 245 million acres of public land, largely across 12 western states including Alaska, and administers 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate nationwide.
