So the last time I gassed up, I — like you and virtually everyone else in America — got some ugly sticker shock. A gallon costs about $4.50 where I live, which is something I can’t complain about to my friends in California, where it’s north of $6.00!
Energy prices are an issue where Republicans always beat Democrats. However, going into the midterms, gas this expensive is bad for its long-term political implications as well as just short-term pain at the pump for everyone. While (finally) dealing with the Iranian regime is necessary, so are energy solutions that circumvent crazy people controlling a 20-mile choke point. (RELATED: The Price of Gas and the November Elections)
If we want to undermine Iran and Qatar, we need Alaskan oil.
And we have a solution — an enormous one. It’s called Alaska: the Last Frontier, which is so big that it increased the total acreage of the U.S. by 20 percent. While it probably doesn’t have more oil than Saudi Arabia, Alaska still has an enormous amount of it to offer. If we want to undermine Iran and Qatar, we need Alaskan oil. If we were able to do that, both normal pump-pinched Americans like myself and our friends in Asia could effortlessly buy oil from Alaska rather than being subject to crazy, jihadist regimes.
Maybe someday Taylor Sheridan can make a show about oil millionaires called Anchorage or something — basically Dallas for the 2030s.
But oil is just the tip of the Alaskan iceberg. Of the 50 minerals that Uncle Sam has identified as critical for national and economic security, Alaska has significant amounts of 49 of them, including antimony, zinc, tungsten, and on and on and on. The only essential mineral not in abundance in Alaska is aluminum, which is the most common metal in the world, so the one thing Alaska is amazing at, we can get anywhere else. (RELATED: Rare Earths, Real Bottlenecks, and Misguided Policy)
But here’s the problem. Like many places that are abundant in resources, Alaska is very remote. It doesn’t have the overwhelming commercial and industrial base of so much of the rest of the country. The state’s success depends on defense and other government spending, much of which goes to Alaska Native Corporations. Called ANCs for short, the groups have been an integral part of the state’s economy since they were created in 1971’s Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
Some people call ANCs the backbone of Alaska’s economy, but they’re actually its entire skeleton. ANCs make up most of the top 10 spots in Alaska’s corporate rankings, with federal contract revenues above $11 billion annually — that’s about 10 percent of the state’s total GDP. ANCs employ more than 15,000 Alaskans, which wouldn’t be possible without federal investment.
However, in conservatives’ quest to improve government efficiency and combat fraud, ANCs have erroneously wound up in the crosshairs. While I usually include Pete Hegseth being our secretary of war among the blessings I need to count, I believe he was wrong when he called ANCs the country’s “oldest DEI program” and promised to “take a sledgehammer” to it.
Well-meaning budget hawks like Hegseth might be throwing out the baby with the bathwater — or throwing the baby out with the oil, antimony, zinc, tungsten, and on and on and on.
Because here’s the other problem. People don’t really like living in Alaska. The people who do like living in Alaska are those whose ancestors have been there for thousands of years. America can’t survive without Alaska, the Alaskan economy can’t survive without ANCs, and ANCs are owned and operated by indigenous peoples. This is like a line of dominoes, and we shouldn’t remove any if we can’t keep our empire standing.
ANCs might look like DEI, but they aren’t. This isn’t Indians pretending to be black to get into medical school or the Somali “Quality Learing Center.” This is indigenous populations helping America win and lead, just like Navajo code-talkers and Ira Hayes raising the flag at Iwo Jima.
Beyond its abundant resources, Alaska’s strategic location right next to Asia makes it essential for “caches, fuel staging, winterized sensors, and remote camps,” according to a January 2026 analysis on irregular warfare doctrine and homeland defense. The same report specifically recommends the use of multi-year contracts with ANCs, emphasizing their role in “persistent sustainment” with “performance metrics for uptime and time to restore.”
Alaska and the people who keep our military infrastructure running are so important that it was even a plot point in last year’s Mission Impossible movie!
An example of one essential ANC contract is Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, which won a $2.3 billion contract to handle the Defense Logistics Agency’s global supply chain for chemicals, including petroleum oils and lubricants. ASRC’s work supports more than 5,000 U.S. military installations worldwide. As the world goes through re-globalization, we want groups like this to become stronger, not weaker.
Especially if they can help get me more, cheaper oil for the next time I have to fill up.
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