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On 26 April 2017 President Trump signed Executive Order 13792, which directed the Secretary of the Interior to review certain National Monuments designated or expanded under the Antiquities Act. Section 2 of the Executive Order specifies that not all National Monuments are under review, only those that “were created after 1 January 1996, where the designation covers more than 100,000 acres, where the designation after expansion covers more than 100,000 acres, or where the Secretary determines that the designation or expansion was made without adequate public outreach and coordination with relevant stakeholders, to determine whether each designation or expansion conforms to the policy set forth in section 1 of the order.” The Marine National Monuments being considered under this Executive Order include but are not limited to: the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument. Unlike Marine Sanctuary designation, Marine National Monument designation does not require a public comment period because National Monuments are established by means of the Antiquities Act and Marine Santuaries are created by an act of NOAA and Congress. Through this review process Trump and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinkehope[d] to “gain local input [which] is a critical component of federal land management.” As of 19 December 2019 Zinke is no longer the Secretary of the Interior and the only National Monuments that have shrunk in size were terrestrial ones located in Utah. It is unclear if/when any Marine National Monuments will be touched by the Trump Administration.

In May of 2008, just a few months prior to Obama’s 2009 Presidential Inauguration, the USGS Engery Resources Program published a study titled “Circum-Arctic Resources Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas of the Arctic Circle” in which they reported that there may be as much as 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in offshore areas of the Arctic. They identified three high interest areas: the West Siberian Basin, the East Barents Basin, and off the coast of Alaska in the Chukchi-Beaufort Sea. In 2008 alone American investors spent $2.6 billion to obtain leases on US government controlled offshore Alaskan tracts to begin the process of securing the oil.

High-profile events during the Obama presidency focused attention on the safety of deepwater oil drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the U.S. The April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, operated by BP, and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred shortly after the Interior Department released a five-year plan for oil and gas development of the U.S. outer continental shelf (OCS). President Obama appointed a bipartisan committee to determine the causes of the blowout and to recommend policies to prevent future disasters. Just one month after the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in May of 2008 U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar imposed a 6 month moratorium on all permits to drill new deepwater wells. The purpose of the moratorium was to address both environmental and safety concerns. By October 2008 the moratorium was lifted but new rules were issued by DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement. One of the requirements set forth by the Bureau was that all offshore oil operators were required to submit new applications proving that they were in compliance with the new more stringent rules.

Still unsatisfied with the new rules pertaining to offshore oil, in 2015, hundreds of kayakers, led by a canoe from the Lummi Nation, protested further plans to drill for oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea. They surrounded a drilling rig in waters off Seattle, Washington and prevented its departure. They were concerned that the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico spill could transpire in the Arctic and that if it did the consequences would be much worse. Biologists at the Pew Research Center suggest that oil spilled in the Arctic would remain there much longer than if it spilled in a warmer part of the world because it would take longer to evaporate and there is a high likelihood that it could get trapped under sea ice where biological degradation is slow to occur. In terms of wildlife recovery, many Arctic species, particularly mammals, have long life spans and produce very few young each year. Their susceptibility to population decline is much higher. The lack of a spill response team also worries those who oppose drilling in the Arctic.

In December, 2016, under the authority of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, a new Arctic policy of Barack Obama included actions to remove almost all U.S. Arctic waters (as well as large portions of the NW Atlantic continental shelf) from the offshore oil program. Ten days after the 2016 presidential election, the Interior Department released its 2017-2022 plan for offshore oil and gas leasing. Shortly after Obama’s announcement Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlawed the potential to expand offshore drilling in Canada’s Arctic waters. This move by both Obama and Trudeau affirmed the need for protection of Arctic resources and the shift in reliance on offshore oils to more sustainable energy sources.

Washington State

Members from the Makah tribe of Washington state getting ready to harvest a whale

According to federal law, the Makah people of Washington State are entitled to hunt and kill one baleen whale, typically a gray whale, each year, though archeological records and oral history indicate a significant number of humpback whales were hunted as well. The Makah ended their whaling practices in the 1920s, but notified the U.S Government of their wish to reassert their whaling rights in 1995. The first permitted Makah whale hunt in 70 years occurred on May 17, 1999, when they caught a north Pacific gray whale, an unpermitted hunt killed another in 2007, and in 2018 they took meat from a humpback killed by a ship strike. An environmental impact statement for further hunts was issued in 2015.

On April 5, 2019 NOAA Fisheries proposed issuing a waiver under the MMPA to the Makah tribe to allow hunting, as well as a what stakeholders can do to engage in the public rule making process before an Administrative Law Judge. One of the main stipulations that NOAA proposed was allowing the Makah people to hunt as many as 20 grey whales every five year, however prior to any hunt the tribe would have to obtain a permit from NOAA. On August 2, 2019 the Administrative Law Judge announced that the final agenda for the hearing on NOAA's proposed waiver and regulations was set for November 2019, which was postposed from the previous June 26, 2019 announcement.